Editor’s note: The following story has been updated to include Gainesville’s arguments opposing the GRU Authority’s motion. 

The Florida First District Court of Appeal set a 5 p.m. deadline for the city of Gainesville to explain why the court should deny the Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) Authority’s request for an injunction against the Tuesday referendum.  

The city sent its response to the GRU Authority’s emergency motion, filed hours after results arrived from the city’s referendum. The referendum ended with 75% of voters siding with the city and opting to dissolve the GRU Authority.  

The Florida First District Court of Appeal (1st DCA) now has both arguments and can decide whether to grant an injunction to “stay” the results of the referendum from being enacted immediately.  

GRU General Manager Ed Bielarski emailed utility employees on Wednesday morning and told them to keep focused on their tasks at hand.   

“The GRU Authority believes yesterday’s vote has no legal consequence until the board receives a court order telling it otherwise or until the special legislative act that created the Authority in 2023 is repealed,” Bielarski said.   

If the 1st DCA denies the stay and allows the referendum results to immediately go into effect, the GRU Authority would be dissolved, making ongoing lawsuits moot. The City Commission would then take over GRU management as authorized by the referendum.   

If the 1st DCA approves the stay and prevents the referendum results from immediately applying, the GRU Authority would continue to manage the utility until the courts settle ongoing legal issues. 

“Consequently, [the GRU Authority] seeks issuance of a Constitutional Writ to prevent the Gainesville City Commission from dissolving [the GRU Authority] before this Court decides whether the Gainesville City Commission has the legal authority to do so,” the authority’s filing said. 

The GRU Authority has argued that the City Commission has no power to hold a referendum that dissolves the authority, which was created by the state. The Eighth Judicial Circuit Court sided against the GRU Authority on the matter, but the case was appealed and is now before the 1st DCA.   

If the referendum results are implemented and the authority dissolved, the appeal would be moot. Therefore, the GRU Authority argues the referendum must be stayed.  

The 1st DCA issued a 5 p.m. deadline for the city to file its arguments, and in the filing, Gainesville’s attorneys said the GRU Authority cannot meet the standard required for the motion it submitted.   

“And because the Authority has not shown, and cannot show, any likelihood of success on its appeal, it cannot meet the standard for injunctive relief,” the Gainesville filing said.   

The lack of any likelihood of success is the same factor that caused Judge George Wright in the Eighth Judicial Circuit Court to deny the authority’s request last week. 

Gainesville attorneys also argued that the “emergency” cited by the GRU Authority as reason for the emergency motion was created from the authority’s own delayed actions. The filing said no one should feel sorry for the authority because it had the “remedies” to prevent its elimination.  

“Having failed to timely or fully pursue its remedies, including an expeditious resolution of the very appeal the Authority is now trying desperately to preserve, the Authority is in no position to impose an emergency on the City, on the Supervisor, and on this Court, one day before the election results are scheduled to be certified,” Gainesville’s filing said. 

The filing mirrors oral arguments made by Senior Assistant City Attorney Sean McDermott last week. McDermott said the GRU Authority’s attorneys stalled and delayed, creating the need to file a last-minute motion.  

McDermott pointed out that the GRU Authority waited 117 days to file its emergency litigation from when the City Commission issued its ordinance calling for the referendum. 

McDermott also said that the city offered a motion to expedite the 1st DCA’s review of the appeal, but the GRU Authority opposed the expedited review of its own appeal.