Regina Ross hired as JEA chief legal adviser (Jax Daily Record)

Congratulations to attorney Regina Ross, Deputy St. Johns County Attorney, recently hired as the top legal adviser to troubled Jacksonville Energy Authority (JEA).

After a long career working for St. Johns County, watching numerous unethical, ill-advised and race-based and class-based hiring. and zoning decisions, Ms. Ross was honored July 20, 2021 by Commissioners during Commissioner comment. 

She hugged every one, except Chairman JEREMIAH RAY BLOCKER, Dull Republican Lord of All He Surveys, defendant in Sara Bloomberg v. Jeremiah Ray Blocker and St. Johns County, Florida.

Then sneaky County Administrator HUNTER SINCLAIR CONRAD won a quick confirmation vote of two more white men for two more director's positions -- without prior public notice, bringing it up at the end of the meeting. Ms. Ross was asked for any words of wisdom. 

She replied, "No comment!" 

With one notable exception, I think Ms. Ross probably did an excellent job as Deputy County Attorney. But when ethics charges relating to the botched autopsy of Ms. Michelle O'Connell were brought against the St. Johns County Medical Examiner, PREDRAG BULIC, M.D.

St. Johns County Attorney PATRICK FRANCIS McCOMRACK, in another late-meeting rush-to-judgment, conned and euchred Commissioners into authorizing the County Attorney to defend BULIC, saving the malfeasant physician thousands of dollars in legal fees, and taking sides on behalf of the author of the preposterous upside-down-gun recoils forward theory, 

 It is hoped that Ms. Ross will not allow her professional ethics to be compromised any further now that she has escaped from St. Johns County's Dull Republican mendacious mediocrities. 

From Jax Daily Record: 

 by: Mike Mendenhall Staff Writer 

 St. Johns Deputy County Attorney Regina D. Ross has been hired as JEA’s chief legal adviser. In a June 23 email, General Counsel Jason Gabriel said Ross will start July 26 at an annual salary of $155,000. JEA CEO Jay Stowe announced the hire during the utility’s June 22 board of directors meeting. 

 Ross will fill the position left vacant since February when Stowe named JEA Chief Legal Counsel Jody Brooks as the utility’s chief administrative officer. Ross has been with the St. Johns County Attorney’s Office since 2007, according to her bio on the county website. She served as a judicial law clerk in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida and the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania and worked for the U.S. Department of Defense. She earned degrees from the University of Florida, Valdosta State University and the Pennsylvania State University School of Law. 

Brooks replaced JEA Vice President and Chief Legal Officer Lynne Rhode, who resigned in December 2019 from the general counsel’s office. At the time, Rhode faced criticism from the general counsel’s office and City Council, along with several members of JEA’s former senior leadership team, for her role in signing off on an employee bonus plan leading to its approval by the JEA board. 

 The bonus plan and attempt to sell the city-owned utility to a private company resulted in the firing of former JEA CEO Aaron Zahn and his leadership team. Like Rhode and Brooks, Ross will report directly to Gabriel but will not be part of JEA’s executive leadership team. “While she will be completely dedicated to JEA for their legal needs, she will not have any JEA title and is not considered a part of any JEA corporate structure,” Gabriel said in his email. Gabriel said Ross’s start date could change depending on the needs of the St. Johns County Attorney’s Office during the transition.