Updated: Clemons calls for end to clashes over GRU Authority, Eastman responds

State Rep. Chuck Clemons speaks during Friday's delegation meeting.
State Rep. Chuck Clemons speaks during the March 17 delegation meeting.
Photo by Seth Johnson

Florida state Rep. Chuck Clemons, R-Newberry, called for the orderly transition of Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) to move forward in a letter to utility customers written last week, saying continued legal actions against the utility are ego driven.  

Called by name in the letter, Gainesville Commissioner Bryan Eastman issued a rebuttal on Wednesday that said the city has the right to change its charter. He also backed recent fiscal decisions made by the City Commission and said the GRU transition has already occurred. Now is the time, Eastman wrote, to respect the will of the voters.

Clemons authored the state bill that changed Gainesville’s City Charter to create the new GRU Authority. In his letter, Clemons said the fiscal peril of the utility spurred the action.  

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He said his goals were to give control to an authority beyond the control of the City Commission, to prohibit “activist-management” of the utility, to establish representation by customers living outside Gainesville city limits, and to preempt any plans that would undermine the authority’s autonomy.  

However, the City Commission passed a ballot referendum earlier this year that asks if Gainesville voters want to change the city’s Charter and eliminate the GRU Authority created by Clemons and the Florida Legislature. The commission said the city isn’t preempted from filing the referendum and that the issue should be decided by Gainesville voters.  

Currently, the GRU Authority has sued to stop the City Commission’s ballot referendum, calling it illegal. Clemons also called the referendum illegal in his letter and praised the efforts of the authority members, GRU’s general manager and its legal counsel. 

Clemons said a series of lawsuits, both by the City Commission and independent parties, had failed to stop the GRU Authority—although one lawsuit did force the resignation of four authority members and a reappointment of members by Gov. Ron DeSantis.   

“This latest attempt by the City illustrates its historic lack of concern for the well-being of both the utility and its ratepayers,” Clemons said. “As witnessed in testimony, the Commission’s actions risk adversely affecting the utility’s bond ratings, undercutting any ability to provide much-needed rate relief to its customers.” 

Gainesville Commissioner Bryan Eastman speaks at a September 2024 General Policy Committee.
Photo by Seth Johnson

Eastman called the city’s original debt reduction plan a viable way forward, in contrast to Clemons, and pointed to a recent upgrade in the city of Gainesville’s credit rating as proof.

Eastman also said Clemon’s bill to create the GRU Authority was so confusing that DeSantis couldn’t understand it. He said this prompted seven resignations since the authority’s creation 13 months ago.

Clemons called for a stop to the legal battles, but Eastman said nothing prevents the city from changing its charter—arguing that a Florida judge has never prevented it.

“The lawsuits you refer to were almost entirely filed by these local ratepayers, not the City Commission,” Eastman said in the letter. “No lawsuits have been filed by the City since the Authority has been seated.”

Clemons said at some point the legal actions by the City Commission could cross the line into malpractice, at which point, the Florida Legislature could consider dissolving Gainesville’s charter and cityhood.  

Having hit his term limit, Clemons will be replaced following the Nov. 5 election. But he said the GRU Authority will have support from the Legislature.  

“Although my tenure in the Florida House is coming to an end, I am assured that they will work closely with a receptive bipartisan Legislature to strengthen and support their efforts in making GRU a utility that customers can afford,” Clemons said. 

The Gainesville City Commission and Clemons, along with state Sen. Keith Perry, have clashed over control of GRU for years. Since the recent bill to create the GRU Authority (2023 House Bill 1645), Clemons has called for Mayor Harvey Ward’s resignation, and Clemons and Perry have blamed the City Commission for high utility debt and electric rates.  

The City Commission sued to prevent the GRU Authority from being created and, following the end of Florida’s 2024 legislative session, decided to move forward with a ballot referendum to put the issue to voters. However, a judge has placed a temporary injunction on the referendum results.

Click here to look at the 18-month timeline on the struggle for GRU from Feb. 24, 2023, through June 26, 2024.    

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include Commissioner Bryan Eastman’s comments and letter.

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Jazzman

What a shallow and unprincipled statement from an unprincipled man. Sure, resistance to stripping control of a utility they own from the people of Gainesville and who previously elected leaders to run it, and give that control to an “authority” unanswerable to them or anyone except the governor- who couldn’t be bothered to read the rules on his 1st round of appointments – is just ego driven.

Good riddance to this power grabbing representative of Gilchrist and Levy County inserting himself where he couldn’t get elected dog catcher. Speaking of which, his district shed even more Alachua county voters lest he get dumped, and so I – who live 2.5 miles from Gainesville city limits – am now represented in the state House by a guy in McClenny and in the state Senate by a woman from Orange Park. This guy is an enemy of local democracy and a partisan “statist” hack making Florida less free and under the thumb of our overlords in Tallahassee.

Concerned Citizen

“The lawsuits you refer to were almost entirely filed by these local ratepayers, not the City Commission,” Eastman said in the letter. “No lawsuits have been filed by the City since the Authority has been seated

How easily Eastman forgets: https://www.alachuacountytoday.com/news-featured/latest/5927-court-dismisses-gainesville-gru-lawsuit
A lawsuit filed by the City Commission that cost tax payers $500k for nothing.

Robert

This happened in September, the Authority was seated in October

That short guy

Too much obfuscation to unpack.
When the lawsuit was filed is irrelvant and a straw man argument. Not a fraction of the claimed “thousands” opposed HB1645 – just the usual cast of characters; regardless, PURPA prohibits utilities being run at the behest of the political winds and judges rule against local governments in their attempts to change their charters all the time, including on several instances this election cycle – Judge Wright literally did what aka Eastman said judges don’t do.

Going forward, the Authority has to ascertain who is sincere and who is disigenuous so that their important work isn’t mired down, engaging in back and forths with individuals whose sole mission is their demise; it just burn calories, is a waste of time and lends undeserved credibilty.

Bill Whitten

All about HIS goals, HIS plans. Did the residents and customers get a vote? Talk about ego-driven!

Jay

Clemons should shut up and leave quietly. He caused this mess and was cheering in the courthouse last week. What a poor excuse of “leadership.”

Susan Bottcher

The attempt by the legislature (read: Chuck Clemons and Keith Perry) to take over GRU has been going on for ten years, not 18 months. They failed every legislative session starting in 2014. Their most notable failure was when a referendum (that Clemons forced on the city ballot) was put to voters in 2018. It was resoundingly defeated 60%-40%. Gainesville citizens know GRU and the city are not perfect, but they have made abundantly clear that they insist on retaining local control.
Clemons accusing any city official of disinformation is stunning considering Clemons’ excuse for forcing HB1645 through was that the city and GRU were “on the verge of bankruptcy”. This is simply a lie. He is well aware that the credit rating agencies have issued the following ratings: Fitch AA (highest grade, investment level, upgraded in July); S&P A highest grade, investment level; Moody’s Aa3 highest grade investment level, “high quality and very low credit risk”.
If anyone is creating aimless clashes it is Rep. Chuck Clemons who just cannot seem to take NO for an answer. Incidentally, he is quite unpopular with voters in the city of Gainesville: He has never won a single Gville precinct in the three times he’s run (getting only between 20%-48% of the vote) and each term his support declined. Clearly it is because voters here do not appreciate his bullying.

Darrell Hartman

A response from Ward would provide some balance to this story.

L B

For real. This article is such a skewed and biased representation of the situation.

Alan Parker

Shouldn’t the owners of GRU have the final say in it’s operation ? Aren’t the citizens of the City of Gainesville the owners of GRU , not all of its customers ? Do the customers of Duke Power have a say in the running of the company ? Is Chuck Clemons afraid of voters ? Answer these questions for yourself and then ask for legislation to prevent GRU from ever being sold to one of Chuck Clemons employers . Follow the money for yourself and then take another look at the history of the seizing of GRU by Tallahassee.

Juan

Yes, lets follow the Money from the Hanrahan’s and the Biomass Eigh’st conception of this debacle The City of Gainesville created to present . A real independent forensic audit. City gets the cost sent to them. Great Idea. The fines and reparation’s go to GRU Customers. The punishment and bills go to the deserving City of Gainesville.

Janice Garry

If Rep. Clemmons was truly interested in orderliness, he would have asked the voters if they wanted to reconsider a third party to govern their utility. The voters turned it down in 2018 and his response was to push through a bill in 2023 that was similar but worse because it allowed the governor, not local elected officials to appoint the authority members. This is a classic situation of creating a problem and then blaming the problem on others. Clemmons, not voters or the city commission, created it. Hypocrisy is not an admirable trait.

Juan

Really?? Let’s do a forensics on that $68,000,000 withdrawal that caught the eye of State Auditors. Stay tuned for the rest of that investigation.

Bryan

That $68 million number has been discredited time and time again. It has no basis in reality and the auditors never cited it in their report, because it isn’t a real number.

Real Gainesville Citizen and Voter

Right!

Juan

Well , Goodness Gracious, let’s not let the Fact the the Gainesville Leaders over the last 2 decades of Biomess and taking funds and excess of GRU profits ,( 68 Million that they now have to pay back) caused them to be the First Commission in the State of Florida to be fired for reckless incompetence and financial ignorance of running a Utility. Accept your Failed Reality and get of the GRU Customers backs and wallets. My bill has gone down since Wokesville was fired , but these
Gainesville City Commissioners and Minions derelicts do not care about anything but bullying the rate payers. You were fired with a mountain of due cause.

James

Thank you zjusn for reminding us of what has truly gone on in Gainesville.

Raymond Mellott

If your bill went down, it wasn’t because any rates were reduced, unless it was a fuel surcharge reduction. Something that would have occurred no matter who would have been in charge.

That short guy

Fuel surcharges are a pass thru, but utilities aren’t completely helpless at reducing the cost to the customer – purchasing choices, fuel type selection, and facilities management, all affect that line item, i.e., better management, targeted at efficiently running a system geared solely to optimally delivering affordable services, and nothing else, will lower bills in real-time, i.e. the more kWhs that can be squeezed out of the overall system for every dollar of fuel cost, the lower the bill. That said – the Authority forwent the 3% increase in electric and the 5% increase in water that the Commission had set to begin in October 2024. Rather than emulating the Commission’s practice of adding to the customers’ burden to pay off the debt, the Authority opted to find that money by reducing operating costs – an exercise anticipated and demanded by HB1645. Just being helpful.

That short guy

The comments on this post were the best illustration as to why HB1645 was so desperately needed.

Question: What is the biggest gambling loss of all time?

Answer: Can’t say for certain, but it’s at least $1.7 Billion.

aka Jazzman’s comments were the gift that kept on giving because they were utilized to display just how misguided the opposition was – what he lacks in his knowledge of civics, he more than makes up for in his failure to grasp the basics of finance. Saying the “people” own GRU is kitschy, but they no more own GRU than they own the ladder truck at fire station. They hold no stock, they receive no dividends; however, the bank accounts of the ratepayers are the revenue stream that have been tasked with keeping the utility afloat with the historically highest rates in our state. That would be an embarrassment for the governing boards of any Municipal Owned Utility that possessed a modicum of shame. Also, you can add reapportionment to the list of those things which confuse aka Jazzman.

Both aka Jazzman and Bill Whitten make the claim that the catalyst for removing the City Commission’s governance was “ego-driven” (such an accusation being made by aka Jazzman is rather rich). Why no, the catalyst was that GRU had been driven to the point where it had, by far, the highest debt load per customer in the entire nation among MOUs (over 2xs it’s closest competitor) and it’s $1.7 Billion of debt placed it just outside of the top 10 in gross debt ( a list with utilities that dwarf GRU in size), with the 10th spot being filled by Austin Energy that, while it has $1.89 Billion in debt, it is 5 times larger than GRU. Despite that, there was no sense of urgency or plan to alter course by the Commission, which invariably leads to pushing rates even higher.

….and Jay – claiming that “this mess” was the result of anyone’s doings other than the last 20 years of mismanagement makes you look silly. Clemons did all his talking in HB1645…, and for as long as it is on the books, your tantrums can’t get that law to “shut-up”.

Susan Botcher – you’d think if the Commission knew that movement had been afoot to wrest the utility from their control for such a long period that they would have taken steps to right the ship. But they didn’t – what they did do during that time was to balloon the debt even more and never veered from the course of enlisting ratepayers in their carrying out an ideological agenda in violation the Federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA). They had one job – deliver affordable utilities; instead, they played with the financially livelihoods of the ratepayers, the utility, and the city itself.

Additionally – when the cabal points to the bond ratings as some litmus test of the financial well-being of an MOU, it diminishes what credibility they have left, if they have any left at all. Bond ratings only point to the likelihood of an entity satisfying the debt. Debts incurred by an MOU will always be repaid, at some point, because investors know that the Commission can unilaterally bleed the ratepayers or, in the event of insolvency, the State’s Constitution demands that all of the taxpayers of Florida pick up the tab. Other businesses don’t have such a safety net. So yes, GRU was headed on a path to insolvency with the State of Florida having to satisfy shortfalls. Instead of HB1645, perhaps a law should have been passed that would indemnify Florida’s taxpayers and have the Commissioners and all you folks get together and personally guarantee the debt. Maybe you all would have better liked that option.

Alan Parker – No, the people of Gainesville do not own GRU – as a Municipally Owned Utility, it is held by the City with the ultimate guarantor being the State of Florida. Because all of the State’s taxpayers are on the hook to clean up the burgeoning mess, it was highly appropriate for the Legislature to take steps to avert further exposure and collateral damage to the tax dollars collected from citizens throughout the state. Further, no, Duke’s customers don’t vote on board members – Duke’s shareholders do; again, the State of Florida is the ultimate shareholder in GRU, so yeah, in light of all that has transpired, the State of Florida moved for a change in governance.

Oh, and I know it’s a really good narrative to push that somehow HB1645 was some devious ploy to allow an Independently Owned Utility to “steal” GRU (aka Jazzman floated that bag of gas on the Chronicle’s page), but GRU is not the jewel you all try to make it out to being – no one wants a $1.7 billion debt with only 100,000 customers and decades before it is satisfied. Further, I know you haven’t read the bill, but the only way GRU can be sold is if the City Commission passes an ordinance and places it before the voters for approval. If what you are alleging were true, it would make no sense to include that provision in the bill.

Janice Garry – again, the Federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA) prohibits political or ideological considerations being a factor in the delivery of utilities – for very obvious and good reasons. The governing boards of most all MOU’s understand, appreciate, and abide by that provision. GRU’s governance violated that law at every turn. Not only charting its direction based upon ideological, rather than pecuniary interests, but it was bled GRU dry to further the political priorities of the City. What resulted was a utility with an unheard of 85% debt load and the highest utility rates in the state. Having the ratepayers, both in the city and the 40% in the county, be held hostage by a popularity contest in which the entirety of the county ratepayers wouldn’t participate, and, among those who would be voting would be a large swath of a transient population of students, would in no way be prudent. Again, PURPA demands that utilities be run for the sole purpose of providing the basic health and safety need of utilities; it is refreshing that GRU is again moving in that direction

Bryan – that is not true and it is ridiculous that you would make such a statement at this point. The city did take more from the utility than they made and it’s been proven over, over, and over , again and again.- A simple review of the balance sheets of GRU over the time in question will show that the utility ran a deficit while the City continued to transfer money annually, and that is absent the totals for the service level agreements, in which the City benefits from a service that GRU is billed for.

All of that said – no matter what three card monte the detractors want to engage in, because the overwhelming facts were available for all to see – their screams, demanding that the rest of us suspend reason and common sense, were beneficial in illustrating the delusional mindset that to which the utility and the ratepayers have been subjected.

Characterizing the situation that GRU was in simply as being “not perfect” lacks all empathy for the ratepayers living on margins. For that matter, there wasn’t a loud outcry against HB1645 by the other Municipal Electrics because none could comprehend ever steering the utility they are entrusted with down to such depths.

You want “hypocrisy” Janice Garry? Hypocrisy is the same “virtuous” folks shouting about the lack of affordable housing, in turn, destroying the financial security of people and businesses because they insist on using GRU as their ideological toy and piggy bank. The voices of the people crying out for relief were louder and more sincere than the folks who were downplaying, dismissing, and deriding anyone expressing concern.

Carry on.

James

Thank you for the truth. GRU was run by children.

Guest

One hundred percent facts

Mark Kane goldstein

Come on. No one with a functioning neuron really believes the lawsuit for astronomical utility charges is unconnected.to City Hall.

This is the same city commission majority that hides behind their wealthy landlords who overcharge the poorest among us in the name of affordability.

Watch
.

Eyes Wide Open

Yes Bryan, the City can still change their charter as long as it doesn’t conflict with state statutes. In that case the state takes precedence. So keep throwing away taxpayer money fighting a battle that you will lose in court again.

JeffK

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION is a basic issue. Eastman needs to go back to grade school Civics class.