I decided to remove AE2 just to confirm it wasn’t causing any problems given the recent issues and the server started up.
First, I will try the SpongeBootstrap solution presented at https://forums.spongepowered.org/t/spongebootstrap-fixes-ordering-issue-with-other-coremods/12275. If that doesn’t work, I will begin looking at AE2 and see what I can figure out.