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receives a court order telling it otherwise or until the special legislative act that created the Authority in 2023 is repealed,” Bielarski said.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.
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Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a CEO who says, “Don’t worry, everything’s fine,” right before filing an emergency motion to keep his job.
Apparently, the lights aren’t the only thing flickering at GRU HQ. Job security seems to be on a dimmer switch too. And while the boss fights to preserve his “emergency motion to protect the management structure of strategic importance” (also known as his paycheck), nearly a thousand employees are at home trying to keep their own lights on. Literally.
It’s a strange world where the guy cashing a mid six-figure check from the power company might be the only one who never checks the power bill.
The email to staff said, “stay focused on your tasks.” Translation: “Please keep doing three people’s jobs while I’m busy drafting legal filings.”
You almost have to admire the energy. I just wish it came in kilowatt-hours.
I have lived in Alachua County all my life and as someone who graduated in 2020 (COVID Class Gainesville Racetrack graduate) from high school and after my hard work at SFC and my part-time jobs, found a job that pays well. I was hired due to my skill NOT DEI (especially since I’m multiracial and the NAACP rejected a scholarship opportunity to me in high school because I was half white) so try your best but I’ve been told by both black and whites I don’t belong to either race so I honestly act like I’m aligned with any. I have found over the last couple years my bills go lower under the GRUA. With living single in a 1 bed 1 bath apartment I manage to get by every month but I do not understand how people can be so supportive of a city government who doesn’t even try to really hide most of their bad spending or lack of business management (I unfortunately can and it’s called UF at this point seems). I read comments on here and Facebook everyday and see how much some residents of this county (specifically UF students) just vote on party lines or what “my professor/“studies” say”. I hope that one day this county (Mostly city; Aiming to move to Newberry!!, High Springs!!!, or Alachua to escape before next November when my lease runs out since they are actually trying to grow and IMPROVE) can see that these liberal policies that they vote for and the liberal (more activist) politicians they keep for what feels like EVERY position. I hope and pray that God will have the courts “stay” the motion by the GRUA to maintain control until their lawsuits fully go through the courts especially now that they clearly have the “impending harm” considering courts before said, “clearly speculative… Rather than speculative future harm, GRUA must demonstrate impending harm that is ‘real and ascertainable’ if the writ is not given.” Well NOW it’s “Real and ascertainable” and it’s no longer just “harm” that is impending, it’s a complete threat by the City and those residents that voted “Yes” of Gainesville.
NOTE: I did vote NO to this over reaching “referendum” that not all customers serviced by GRU got to have a say in, in addition to the fact that my bills in city limits have decreased since the GRUA was established.
I votes “Yes,” not to support, as you put it, ‘a city government {etc.}” I voted “yes” because what the legislature and the governor did was morally wrong: a taking, a steal, a robbery, a real Soviet Union Communist takeover. GRU was built and is owned by the City. Suppose you were to start a business and, after all the cost, hard work and time you put in to get that business up and running, all of a sudden some Florida State legislator files a bill to give control of that business to a panel of people you don’t even know, and the legislature and the governor agree to it! Not fair, right? Well, that’s how I felt about creation of the “GRU Authority.”
With respect to “not all customers . . . got to have a say,” consider the situation with the big investor-owned electric companies. When Duke Energy or Florida Power and Light decide to raise rates, who gets “to have a say” on that? Only the bigwigs at the state level; not the rate payers. With GRU, at least we, citizens of the city that owns the utility, get a chance to “throw the bums out” if we don’t like what they do. That’s a helluva lot closer to “fair” then what you encounter in Orlando, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Tallahassee, Miami, Tampa, St. Augustine and Fort Lauderdale.
The first referendum on GRU was held before Covid, and voters spoke. The second time, we spoke with the same message. This is the third time, and we spoke even louder.
The Utility isn’t Talahassee’s plaything.
Well it was NOT 75% of voters! It was 75% of the votes. Only 19% of the voters voted. ACCORDING TO ELECTION OFFICIALS.
Please don’t post erroneous statistics.
It is sad enough that 81% of the voters DID NOT VOTE!
THIS IS SO SAD GAINESVILLE. DON’T WHINE IF THE COURTS HAPPEN TO RULE IN THE CITY’S FAVOR.
I HEARD THE CRYBABY ON THE COMMISSION DOING THAT TODAY.
Thanks, Main Street and Seth for following this confusing trail of legal issues. This is what local journalism looks like. We’re fortunate to have you.