For the second time, Gainesville’s electorate has sided with the City Commission and voted to eliminate the Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) Authority.
Gainesville passed the local utilities referendum with 75% of the vote—10,882 out of 14,474 ballots. In 2024, a nearly identical referendum (No Contest, Part 1) passed with 72% of the vote, but the result remains in limbo following a lawsuit and appeal to the Florida First District Court of Appeal.
GRU officials said on Monday that it would file an emergency motion before the appeals court to keep the status quo and prevent the referendum from being implemented.
Before the previous referendum, the GRU Authority received a temporary injunction to halt the results, but last week an Alachua County judge denied the request, forcing the utility to go to the appeals court with the emergency motion.
The Gainesville City Commission is scheduled to discuss the issue at its regular meeting on Thursday, the same day the results will be certified.
Mayor Harvey Ward said on Facebook that more information concerning legal action should be available Wednesday.
“We will have more detail tomorrow about any further legal action that may be taken to keep your vote from counting, but I am hopeful that everyone has heard your voice and will proceed with that in mind,” Ward said in the post.
Let the Voters Decide, a campaign run in support of the referendum, issued a statement after the results arrived. Chairperson Bobby Mermer said the campaign is also calling for an end to litigation and an orderly transition.
“This is the beginning of the process to create a GRU that everyone can afford and that works hand-in-hand with our community to ensure Gainesville’s utilities are governed with Gainesville values,” the statement said.
The campaign also highlighted the turnout, 19% of the eligible voters. According to Mermer and Commissioner Bryan Eastman, the turnout is the largest city-only election in decades. According to the Supervisor of Elections Office, a total of 76,338 residents were active eligible voters for the election.
But the Alachua County Republican Party also highlighted the turnout, saying a small percentage of local residents will control how everyone else lives. One of the largest issues for many opponents of the referendum was that only city residents could vote, but GRU services a large number of customers outside city limits, more than 30% for electric service.
While not an explicitly Republican Party versus Democratic Party issue, the arguments and sides largely formed along party lines.
The Let the Voters Decide campaign distributed promotions depicting Gov. Ron DeSantis and President Donald Trump on the “No” vote side and local Democratic Party leaders (Commissioner James Ingle, NAACP President Evelyn Foxx and former County Commissioner Hutch Hutchinson) on the “Yes” vote side.
The Supervisor of Elections Office reported that 69% of early voting participants were registered with the Democratic Party.
Congratulations on voting yourself your next property tax and utilities increases Gainesville!
Hopefully, there will be a mass exodus of the people who actually pay taxes in the city and county and then the GNV CC can see who will pay their frivolous spending on pet projects for their non tax paying constituents!
I guess you haven’t noticed utility prices have gone up since the authority has been in place. And where is that money going? Who knows?
Don’t worry. “They” (i.e., the Gainesville haters, the Alachua Count haters and their buddies who dominate the Executive and Legislative branches of Florida’s government) will figure out a way to re-steal control of the utility that the city built and owns. They may use skullduggery in the courts, they may make some legislative move ripped from the Soviet Union playbook, they may convince the governor to send in his “Florida State Guard” private army, they may try any number of ways. As with their big brothers at the national level, these people never give up attempting to overthrow democracy and common sense.
The mistake that Chuck Clemons and the rest of the lege made in creating the so-called “GRU Authority” was to make it a gubernatorial-appointed body. If they had made it elective among all customers, it might have had a much easier time in the central city. But, oh no, the aim was to punish and to keep control out of the hands of the owning city and to give appointments the governor’s loyal donors and supporters.
Another point. All the folks who scream about having no voice in rate-setting: suppose your electricity company was Florida Power & Light or Duke Energy and that company decided to raise rates drastically. How much influence would you have over that decision?
And the nearly 40% of us forced to use GRU and not in the City of Gainesville have what say in its governance? I hope the legislature passes the bill to require municipal utilities that serve customers outside the municipality to regulation by the PSC.
My wife and I have lived all over Florida and we made the mistake of buying a house inside of Gainesville and Alachua county for that matter. We will be selling our house and moving to a better county. White hippy liberals are the worst thing that ever happened to this country. Well done.
you can say that again, they basically treat Gainesville like it’s a mini California.
These people ( the locals and the govt they keep in place) wrecked GRU the school system and public safety
Gville is very different than 40 years ago.
They are
Democracy in motion! Let’s keep any current and all future Commissioners committed to debt reduction and a unified approach to governing Gainesville and the greater Gainesville area’s utilities. It will feel nice to be working together again.
Voters spoke again. And yet some still want to thwart their will. Again.
I didn’t have a vote. My will was thwarted!
Sadly, I saw people being turned away because they “didn’t live within the city limits”. If you are a (forced) customer of GRU, you should get a say!
Representing a 19% voter turnout in the city according to the supervisor of election’s office. There are just over 174,000 voters in the county, but while much of the county is stuck with GRU as their power company, the county residents weren’t permitted to vote. At a county level the referendum was approved by just 6% of the voters. We’ll have to wait and see if the courts will accept the argument that a city vote can overturn a state law on a countywide basis.
I’m confident that if voters in the county were included the referendum would have still passed. People want home rule and are sick and tired of Tallahassee dictating their preferences
You’ve got to hand it to the GRU Authority — they’ve managed to do what no one else could: make a public utility go viral. Between record-setting CEO salaries, vanishing employees, and social media posts that make you check twice it’s not a parody account, you’d think someone slipped a Netflix camera crew into City Hall. Meanwhile, the folks actually keeping the lights on are being told to “do more with less,” (actual quote from many internal meetings with leadership) while the top brass seem to be doing “less for more.” You can’t make this stuff up, though someone clearly tried. Now the big question was: did we want our power company run by people who think “engagement” means arguing with citizens on Facebook, or by the people Gainesville actually elected to represent us? The only shame is, what might have been a positive change with the GRU Authority is being lost in the noise created by the lame horse they hitched their wagon to. That lame horses name was Ed. Either way, maybe someone should start metering the ego output… It’s clearly the hottest energy source in town.
So you should be fine with GRU being regulated by the PSC then. It is the only way to be fair to those of us that are not city residents. Or allow us to use Duke or Clay Electric. I was given no choice.
Congratulations local democracy and home rule! Congratulations voters! For the third time, we voted forcefully to have local control of our local utility. It’s time for people who want to take that away from us to listen. It’e time for Ed Bielarski to step aside, time for the Authority members to stop spending our money on lawsuits and time for leadership of Gainesville to find a better way to manage our treasured Gainesville Regional Utilities.
Many thanks to the team and leadership of Kim Barton at the Supervisor of Elections who put together a safe, accurate special election. They gave all Gainesville voters an opportunity to express their choice.
I’d like home rule for those of us living outside of Gainesville and forced to use GRU. Where is our vote? Our representation?
And we don’t live in a democracy. We live in a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC.
Wonder what portion of the “voters” are students with no connection to the city than being in a dorm room.
You’ve got to hand it to the GRU Authority — they’ve managed to do what no one else could: make a public utility go viral. Between record-setting CEO salaries, vanishing employees, and social media posts that make you check twice it’s not a parody account, you’d think someone slipped a Netflix camera crew into City Hall. Meanwhile, the folks actually keeping the lights on are being told to “do more with less,” (actual quote from many internal meetings with leadership) while the top brass seem to be doing “less for more.” You can’t make this stuff up, though someone clearly tried. Now the big question was: did we want our power company run by people who think “engagement” means arguing with citizens on Facebook, or by the people Gainesville actually elected to represent us? The only shame is, what might have been a positive change with the GRU Authority is being lost in the noise created by the lame horse they hitched their wagon to. That lame horses name was Ed. Either way, maybe someone should start metering the ego output… It’s clearly the hottest energy source in town.
No, the “voters” did not decide. 40% of GRU customers live outside of the city limits and were NOT allowed to vote on this matter. But everyone already knows that, they just like to pretend this vote was reasonable.
Well, over 80 % of the registered voters did not use their right to do so…
Will you come up to Tallahassee with me to lobby the state legislature to force Florida Power & Light customers and Duke to allow all of the customers to vote on who is on their Board of Directors (they’ll have to eminent domain the companies)? If you do agree, reveal your first and last name, and follow through, then I promise you that I will go to Tallahassee with you, hand-in-hand, to demand GRU customers outside city limits get a say in the utility.
If not, then I advise you to quit while you’re ahead and stop bringing up this up this argument.
When I was a Duke customer, I had NO say on my rates. I had NO say on the surcharge they billed me every month for a nuclear power plant they never rehabilitated. No say in anything.
If you don’t apply the same standards to Duke and FPL, then stop whining about GRU because you’d plainly be a hypocrite.
If you’re willing to fight alongside me to bring energy democracy to Duke and FPL customers, then let’s get together and start that campaign.
We have the PSC for that and they are appointed by our elected officials. Will GRU submit to regulation by the PSC?
The local govt is not the be trusted
The stupidity of the average voter never ceases to amaze. Imagine voting to let the City burrow their hands even deeper into your own pocket.
More like the governor borrowing our money into his pockets.
This is an asinine comment. Seriously, how does Ron DeSantis profit from GRU? Are you sure you’re not referring to corruption within Gainesville’s City Commission?
Yeah, like DeSantis slinks into his office and rubs his hands together with glee over having control over the utility company that runs rinky-dink town like GNV.
typical hippy crap “It’s the man keeping you down man!!!!” meanwhile being robbed blind by local politicians…..
ahh typical brainwashee. and lies.
It’s time that GRU sells to a private utility company that has experience in running such companies. City commissioners have no business running a utility company. They use our money to fund their pet projects, period.. They couldn’t care less about GRU’s customers. They do a lot of lip service to the voters to make them feel “involved” or “in charge” but that’s a joke. A bunch of robbers.
The best solution sell GRzu
Less than 20% of eligible voters voted. This pretty sad GAINESVILLE! You just let the fat and greasy wolf in. WHY? This is an important issue. And you stayed home!?
The courts could stop this, however, that remains in doubt.
THIS IS YOUR FAULT GAINESVILLE!
I know… my heart sank when I saw that. Apparently the only people who voted are the ones without jobs during the week……*sighs*
The commission know how to turn out their posse
Can we vote on changing GRU to a co-op like Clay Electric instead?
– all the customers get to vote on who leads it, not just gainesville residents, and
– the city commission can’t run up huge debts using it as their own personal piggy bank, because it’s a separate organization
I didn’t really like either of the options presented to us on Tuesday.
This is the result of decades of leftist indoctrination in Gainesville. Many people here actually believe it is prudent to use a municipal utility company to push unproven and disastrous “green” initiatives and to bleed the utility dry to fund socialist utopias. The City Commission is not equipped to run a utility company. They’ve proven this over and over. The city can’t even pass a forensic audit of their spending. Someone needs to step in because the 40% of us without representation as to what GRU does is unacceptable. People are going to start raising real estate values in areas serviced by Clay Electric. I guarantee you my next move will be a non-GRU location.
As a Florida Resident who has lived in the Panhandle and Central Florida, I’m shocked by the amount of senior citizens who still think it’s the 1960’s or 70’s in GNV. Tie Dye shirts, Socialist propaganda, on and on. I literally see my facebook with posts praising how great California is compared to Florida, while said people are residing in Florida…… rmfe. I understand College towns lean left, but dang!
I’m completely shocked by how many people have voted to tax themselves to death *AND* hand over control of the only utility company to a bunch of crooked local politicians.
Wonder what percentage of voter are students living in dorm rooms whose real home is elsewhere?
I’m sure the real control are the leftest student that the mob strives to register to vote
more like 7.5%, when you consider the % of eligible voters. 🙁