The city of Gainesville’s special election will occur next week as residents vote on whether to keep the Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) Authority or return management to the City Commission.
The referendum happens on Nov. 4, and early voting will take place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Supervisor of Elections Office (515 North Main St.) and the Millhopper Branch Library (3145 NW 43rd St.).
But before early voting starts, attorneys for the GRU Authority and city of Gainesville will argue before the Eighth Judicial Circuit Court.
Judge George Wright gave the green light in September for the referendum to proceed. His decision came after the GRU Authority filed an expedited motion to enforce the statutory suspension of a municipal ordinance. This motion, if successful, would have prevented the city from holding its referendum because of constitutional challenges. But Wright denied the motion.
On Oct. 29, Wright will listen from both sides again. This time, the hearing will concern an emergency motion for a temporary injunction. Under this motion, the GRU Authority is again asking the court to suspend the referendum and/or any enforcement of the referendum until all the legal disputes are resolved.
Meaning, if Gainesville residents vote to remove the GRU Authority, the City Commission wouldn’t take over on Nov. 5. Instead, the authority would continue in its place until the courts settle the legal issues, allowing the lawful entity to begin management.
The main legal issues present for the upcoming referendum are already being litigated in the Florida First Court of Appeals after the November 2024 referendum.
The November 2024 referendum passed with 72% of the voters wanting to remove the GRU Authority. Though detractors continue to dispute the results by pointing out that not all GRU customers get to vote because they live outside the city limits.
The GRU Authority argued in court that the city lacks the power to amend a section of its charter expressly added by the Florida Legislature. The Florida Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis created the GRU Authority in 2023.
But Gainesville rebutted that every city charter is created by a special act of the legislature. Nevertheless, cities are still allowed to amend them through processes outlined in Florida law.
Wright sided with the city in April, and the appeal court heard arguments this summer on the case. There’s no timeline for when the higher court might issue a ruling.
For the Oct. 29 hearing, the GRU Authority will present new arguments compared with those presented in April. In the filings, its lawyers argue that the referendum would illegally expand the city’s extraterritorial powers, impacting citizens outside its limits, by taking over the utility.
The city denied the extraterritorial powers claim and the conclusions drawn by the authority’s lawyers.
The GRU Authority is the worst. Anything that can be done to get them out of the Utility Management business is good for Gainesville. Their cuts have done nothing except enrich those at the top (ie C level raises and bonuses) while putting extreme strain on the employees and offering only position eliminations and lack of pay recognition while at the same time NOT seeing any improvement in my monthly costs what so ever (My rates are as higher or higher than they were last year). Speaking as a GRU employee AND resident of the city of Gainesville. The current state of things is not sustainable and I blame the authority for poor oversight and management for not doing the right thing for the employees they are taking advantage of.
What BS. County residents who pay for electricity have no say in this matter. The city skimed money off of Gru for many years while not keeping up with the infrastructure needed to maintain water sewage and other necessary maintenance. The city keeps wasting money with attorneys and lawsuits using taxpayers money to fund their Golden Goose unnecessary needs.
The GRU Authority is the worst. Anything that can be done to get them out of the Utility Management business is good for Gainesville. Their cuts have done nothing except enrich those at the top (ie C level raises and bonuses) while putting extreme strain on the employees and offering only position eliminations and lack of pay recognition. Speaking as a GRU employee. The current state of things is not sustainable and I blame the authority for poor oversight and management for not doing the right thing for the employees they are taking advantage of.
Though it may be true that “every city charter is created by a special act of the legislature”, if a city charter conflicts with state law, state law takes precedence. Plus almost 40% of GRU ratepayers have no say on this item while people who are not ratepayers get to vote. That alone should be enough for the courts to reject the desperate attempts by the City Commission to take back their cash cow.
Thats a great point, Will. 40% DONT live in the city limits but a majority of rate payers do. Where was the concern for the will of the people of Gainesville when the Authority grabbed control in the first place? There is no accountability with the Authority. At least when GRU is under control of the city, the voters have recourse if Management isnt operating inline with what is collectively agreed to be best for the citizens and customers alike. Voting to keep GRU under not only the authority but the same General Manager that was at the helm during arguably the worst time in GRU history, feels a lot like doing the same thing over again but expecting a different result, no?
Anonymouse provides the least honest assesment of the entire situation.
Sorry, that sounds harsh: Anonymouse provides the most dishonest assessment of the entire situation.
The “accountability” is a lie. There is no voting out or changing any commissioners mind when they decide on city budgeting with the General Fund Transfer at the core of it. They spend and spend, and if you don’t agree you get fired. We’ve seen it in action.
The way they work is, we want to do X, we don’t care what it costs (bc our GRU makes it possible) so figure out a way to do that.
They don’t take advice or consult on Gru matters. They just spend.
They occasionally do PAY for consultants and then do what they wanted to do, so they could say they “fleshed it out” …. you know… they did their “diligence”…
If you prefer constant rate increases, massive debt for solar projects and the #1 most expensive utility rate in the state, then you have exposed yourself to be what we already know and what JLAC made public.
You and your kind are lockstep with stupid.
I dont know what planet you’re on, my and and a majority of people’s bill went down.
The planet I’m on isn’t financing solar projects without the rate hidden.
My planet has someone who actually knows the business.
The GFT got squished. Did the city break…. no.
Did firing 150 city employees (which nobody believes) stop the gears of governance….. no.
Did the peasentry lose control and there weren’t enough cops to respond….no.
In fact there’s still enough money to sell a multi- million dollar property for a nickel so we can pay for more vagrants and the mentally unwell to call Gainesville home.
Enough to build a brand new high school football complex too.
Your accountable city commissioners can’t even manage a historical building from crumbling into the ground.
If this accountability was true they would eliminate the county surtax fees that only those, outside the city, who can’t vote them out , will continue to pay.
That doesn’t sound very representative does it.
So can’t vote, no accountability, pay extra….. sounds fair?….. yeah… no.
If you can amend the charter to vote on taking it back, you can amend the charter to allow for ALL customers to vote….
When they raised your property taxes to “make up” for the lost revenue, how quickly do you think they will lower it back once they get GRU?…….
you know don’t you…..
Bend over useful idiot
No
So, the current Authority was put in place ONLY because a legislator denied local leaders and residents to have any input. In 2023 a bill was taken to the legislation without a single local meeting on the topic. In 2018, 60% of voters said NO to having control of GRU to go to the state. In 2024, 72%+ of voters said they wanted to return control to local leaders. Since then, the Authority has used thousands and thousands of dollars of GAINESVILLE money to sue Gainesville. The Authority doesn’t want to let voters have a choice.
State law says that you can’t vote in a city (any city) election unless you live in that city. So anybody who wants a vote in Gainesville elections can 1) move to Gainesville 2) annex where you live into Gainesville.
The Authority is supposed to have five members. There are only four. The governor, who is solely responsible, has not appointed another one. Of the four members, one’s term has expired, one who represented a large commercial entity has retired, so he no longer fits the criteria required by law, one owns a scooter shop and one is a lacrosse coach. Does this sound like strong leadership to you? Meanwhile, they gave Ed Bielarski a raise from his $322,000 salary; he now makes $344,000. More than any city or county commissioner or anybody in the school system. Talk about a waste of money!
Get the state out of our city charter and out of our utility. Vote YES on the GRU referendum by November 4. Vote early. Vote by mail. Vote in person. Vote YES.
You must vote “NO”. The GRU Authority has kept rates flat/low. The City Commission will not do that. Every time the GRU General Manager tried to get the City Commission to lower the general fund transfer (GFT), the city tried to fire him. They finally did just that. I worked there for 20+ years and I know that the city commission keeps their thumb on GRU to an extent. They sway what gets done, and it’s not always what is best for the utility because the city commission is not utility experts. They change over every 2-4 years and by the time they can get up to speed, the commission changes. Mike Kurtz was run off by them, because he was looking into building another power plant (be it coal or gas fired ) but the commission had a cow over that and then we got the infamous biomass plant instead! How is that working out!!!!!
At the end of the day, this comes down to a simple question of “who decides?”. The choice is either the Governor – with essentially zero accountability to rate payers – or the City Commission – with at least limited accountability via city voters. A Governor could decide tomorrow to sell it all off to FPL or Duke and no one would have any say in the matter.
If this whole exercise was a genuine, good-faith effort to address rate-payer inequities rather than a state political power play, better options were available. In particular, conversion to a publicly owned nonprofit (see Green Bay Packers) or a co-operative type of structure would have been far more agreeable to all. Unfortunately there was never anything “good-faith” about the takeover.