JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Action News Jax is getting answers from top JEA leaders about employees parking in public spots without paying the meter.
Pilar Langhton just opened a business downtown. Already, she's getting complaints from customers about parking downtown.
"It's really hard. We receive a lot of complaints," said Langhton.
But with parking at a premium, an Action News Jax investigation exposed more than a dozen JEA trucks parked at expired meters for hours at a time last week. Even after our investigation Friday, our cameras still caught them out there Monday and there were again empty spots in the JEA designated parking lot right next to the meters.
“The JEA [designated lot] lot you refer to is a lot with assigned spaces for JEA fleet vehicles. It is for JEA employees who work out of downtown and go into the field, and then return in the evening to the same assigned spot.”
The city doesn't have a policy saying they can't park there, but did tell us they discourage it. At least one of the JEA board member said it shouldn't be happening. Warren Jones said he plans to address the policy at a meeting next week.
"One that encourages confidence in the public that the city employees are not taking advantage of a policy that is designed to not ticket city vehicles when they're actually doing work," said Jones.
A JEA spokesperson also defended the downtown parking, saying in a statement: "JEA’s service territory covers four counties. JEA field employees often have to come downtown for business or training and need parking."
Both the city and JEA refused an on-camera interview. So, we tried to go to the public parking office to get answers. We waited nearly seven minutes only to be told to contact a city spokesperson. They sent us the same statement she sent on Friday.
We did reach out to all the JEA board members. The vice chair told us he would look at our reports and get back to us, only saying they probably shouldn't be parking there.
Here is the statement again from the city staff:
"City parking enforcement officials often do not cite Jacksonville Fire & Rescue Department, JEA, and the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office service vehicles that may have exceeded maximum time allotments at on-street parking meters. While we may not pursue enforcement, we also do not encourage meter use. To encourage and promote proper parking expectations, the City of Jacksonville disseminated the attached memo to employees."
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