The Gainesville City Commission voted 4-0 in a Friday special meeting to pass a resolution confirming the Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) Authority’s control over bond issuance.
The GRU Authority requested the vote, which came a week after the commission voted to delay the resolution until January.
Now, GRU staff will begin work, with a little extra time, to secure the utility’s liquidity facilities before the May expirations.
The liquidity facilities serve as protection against $105 million in bonds, and because of the new structure with the GRU Authority, staff remain unsure of the renewal process.
The resolution, created by GRU’s bond counsel, is intended to reassure financial institutions that the current general manager position under the authority has the same power over bonds that the previous general manager position did under the City Commission.
The motion passed unanimously with commissioners Cynthia Chestnut, Desmon Duncan Walker and Casey Willits absent. The special meeting was scheduled earlier this week after the commission had already entered its Christmas recess.
City Attorney Daniel Nee placed the item on the City Commission’s agenda. It was the only item for the special meeting that lasted less than 15 minutes.
“By way of background, it is designed to recognize the changes to our city charter, effectuated last year by the Legislature, where governance over the utility systems including its debt portfolio were transferred to a different public body,” Nee said.
Commissioner Bryan Eastman said he’d spoken with Nee since the previous meeting to work through his concerns of the resolution giving more power to GRU staff than the City Commission had previously granted.
While he still has many of the same reservations, Eastman proposed the motion to pass the resolution.
“I think we’ve just got to be really careful about our setting precedent—what certain things mean and how we go forward,” Eastman said. “Small changes can have larger impacts down the road.”
Eastman said GRU staff had told the commission that the start of January would work as a deadline for the resolution. Now, if the utility feels it needs more time, Eastman said he’s fine passing the resolution.
He said one of the main priorities for the City Commission is making the new structure of a GRU Authority and City Commission work.
“We opposed the transition to an appointed Gainesville Regional Utilities Authority, but we all took an oath to the charter of the city of Gainesville,” Eastman said. “We will do what we can, particularly as it relates to our bonds and making sure that our bond holders are paid off.”
Commissioner Ed Book also spoke with Nee and GRU staff since last week’s meeting. He said those discussions settled any worries he had.
The authority asked the City Commission to approve the resolution at its Dec. 14 meeting, but the commissioners had reservations and decided to wait. GRU staff at the meeting said a delay until the first of January wouldn’t derail the process.
Later that day, the authority discussed the delay at its workshop, and Chair Craig Carter said he would reach out to the city for a special meeting, hoping to pass the resolution a little earlier to give extra time.
GRU General Manager Tony Cunningham said at the workshop that the delay introduced some risk and that operations would need to run smoothly in the new year.
The special meeting did save the utility nearly two weeks of extra time, but the holidays also come in the middle of that stretch.