The Gainesville City Commission wants itemized invoices and an explanation from the Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) Authority after being charged around $313,998 in utility legal fees.  

Mayor Harvey Ward sent a letter to GRU Authority Chair Eric Lawson on Friday after direction from the City Commission the previous day. In the letter, he said the GRU Authority has charged the city of Gainesville a total of $700,000 in legal fees accrued from suing the city over the last two years.  

GRU sends a government services contribution to the city totaling $8.5 million annually. But the authority has subtracted the legal fees from that transfer, along with payment for Alachua County streetlights.  

The letter and debate around legal fees are the latest in ongoing litigation and debate over control of GRU.  

Ward said forcing the city to pay the legal fees isn’t a good business practice that companies follow, which was one of the rationales for creating the authority.  

“It doesn’t make sense that they can just randomly say, ‘We don’t like this, so we’re going to sue you, and you’re going to pay for it,’” Ward said. “That’s weird. That’s not a common business practice.” 

In a statement, GRU’s CEO Ed Bielarski said the utility isn’t charging the city for its legal bills. Rather, he said the city’s illegal actions—holding a referendum to eliminate the GRU Authority—forced the utility to spend money on legal fees rather than transfer the dollars as planned.  

The legality of the referendum remains on appeal before the Florida First District Court of Appeal.  

Bielarski added that the City Commission has no right to advise or direct the GRU Authority and no right to ask for itemized legal bills in the middle of active litigation.  

Ward said the City Commission needed to pose these questions and challenge the utilities’ actions to know how far they could go.  

“We’re on the hook for three-quarters of a million dollars to sue ourselves to stop our residents’ votes from being counted. That’s crazy,” Ward said.