Key Points
This week marks two years since the Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) Authority was seated and started managing the utility, and its struggle with the Gainesville City Commission continues after a Tuesday ruling that allows the city’s referendum to continue in November.
It’s also the final week to register for that upcoming voter referendum aimed at dissolving the GRU Authority.
The Florida Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis created the GRU Authority, but the Gainesville City Commission believes that a voter referendum to change the city’s charter can undo the state officials’ actions.
The City Commission tried with a referendum in November 2024 that citizens approved but courts have since stalled. Now, a new referendum hopes to finish the process.
After Tuesday’s decision, Mayor Harvey Ward said he hopes the people’s choice will be followed.
“As I’ve said more times than I can count, Gainesville residents own these utilities, and we should respect their voice at the polls,” Ward said. “Gainesville voters get to speak again on November 4, and I hope they—we—will be heard this time.”
All registered voters within the Gainesville city limits can vote in the referendum, scheduled for Nov. 4. The deadline to register is Oct. 6, and you can visit the Supervisor of Elections website for all the details about registering.
The GRU Authority filed a complaint and expedited motion to prevent the referendum from happening, but Eighth Judicial Circuit Judge George Wright denied the expedited complaint in a hearing. His ruling keeps the referendum rolling.
The city of Gainesville said Florida’s courts are only allowed to interfere in elections under the rarest circumstances.
“[The GRU Authority] attempts to distort section 166.0411, Florida Statutes, into an unprecedented election-cancelling tool—one that would disenfranchise Gainesville voters and transform the judiciary into a gatekeeper of electoral participation, a role wholly foreign to Florida law,” the city’s attorneys wrote.
Ed Bielarski, CEO of GRU, said the utility honors the judge’s ruling on the point.
Bielarski highlighted that the ruling only applied to the expedited motion, but the larger complaint filed in August remains open.
“Rest assured, the GRUA will continue to pursue all legal means necessary to fulfill the special act of the legislature that created the GRU Authority,” Bielarski said in a statement. “We still firmly believe that the city has no right to override state law and that an independent board whose mission is to represent all GRU customers is best for our community.”
He said the authority hopes the complaint can be ruled on before the referendum. If not, the utility plans to request an injunction to prevent the results of the referendum from being enforced until all the legal matters are resolved.
The relationship between the two boards has been rocky from the start. The two boards have argued over funding revenues, and the city has pointed to the GRU Authority as the primary source of recent budget troubles, while the authority blames the commission for its utility’s debt burden.
Besides the litigation for the upcoming referendum, a couple of other open questions remain that will determine GRU’s future.
Prior lawsuit appeal
The second referendum is happening while the results of the first one are still being weighed on appeal. That appeal process could impact the upcoming referendum.
The City Commission opposed the GRU Authority even before its creation, with the city suing to prevent the authority from being created. Commissioners said it infringed on home rule and took an asset of the citizens away from the citizens.
The city held the 2024 referendum, but the GRU Authority challenged it on three counts. The utility received an injunction before that referendum to also allow the legal challenges to proceed.
Wright ruled in April on the case, and he agreed on one of the three counts: calling the ballot language misleading.
However, Wright also sided with Gainesville, saying that the city had the right to change its charter and even remove sections added by the Florida Legislature.
That ruling gave the City Commission confidence to pay $250,000 for another referendum, leading to Tuesday’s hearing and the authority’s efforts to prevent it.
But the GRU Authority has also appealed Wright’s April decision to the First District Court of Appeal. No timeline exists for when the case may be settled.
If the appeal court overturns certain parts of the decision, the City Commission may not have a basis for the referendum and undoing a section of its charter placed by the Florida Legislature. Or, the appeal court could agree that Gainesville has the right to change its charter, allowing the upcoming November referendum to stand.
Once a decision is reached, additional lawsuits or appeals could also come.
Florida Legislature action
In January 2025, state Rep. Chad Johnson, R-Chiefland, announced a bill to amend the section in Gainesville’s charter that created the authority, intended to clarify and fix issues. But the bill was quickly tabled for more community input.
State Rep. Yvonne Hayes Hinson, D-Gainesville, is sponsoring a local bill to eliminate the GRU Authority. The bill will be discussed at the Alachua County Legislative Delegation meeting on Oct. 20.
Hinson was the lone dissent on the delegation in 2023 when the authority was created. She remains the only Democrat on the delegation.
Both state Sen. Jenniffer Bradley, R-Green Cove Springs, and state Rep. Chuck Brannan, R-Macclenny, voted in favor of the authority in 2023. Johnson and state Sen. Stan McClain are new to the delegation since then.
During the upcoming session, a new bill could appear that changes the landscape and potentially places the GRU Authority outside the reach of a voter referendum.
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Despite the judge’s ruling, the courts still haven’t answered the question of whether or not a City can overturn a State statute. In the meantime, please VOTE NO and don’t allow the City to go back to annual rate increases, more debt and to reinstate their plan to ‘get out of the generating business’.
That’s the GRU Authority trying to get out of the generating business not the City Commission. Ed Bielarski has said he wants GRU to exit the generation business, which will kill hundreds of jobs at GRU and raise rates.
At the time Ed was serving at the will of the City Commission and that has been their desire since Pegeen was mayor. That’s why she was negotiating secret deals for a private entity to build the Biomass Plant. I was at meetings when ‘getting out of the generating’ business was discussed before Ed became the GM.
Regardless of how you feel about the local utility, the point is WHO gets to decide. Do We the People decide for ourselves or do our “betters” decide for us?
Bill, what about we, the GRU customers who live outside of the city, who are excluded from this vote. When will we be included in the decisions decided by ourselves. Or are we just the “lessers”.
Until the voters decide to elect commissioners who act competently and effectively and ideologically delusional Gainesville has zero business overseeing GRU
Only 15-20% of Gainesville’s est. 145,000 people will even bother to vote next month and THEY will essentially decide for the entire county. 300,000(?) WHO LIVE IN THIS COUNTY. Half of us outside the city have ZERO say in this matter thanks to this judge (a Special Counsel Jack Smith look alike if there ever was one). Tallahassee has to come back in and drop the hammer on this city. So corrupt.
The examples were spot on. Can you post more like this?
There are over 30 municipal utilities in Florida, and nationwide, hundreds. NO Other municipal utility has had the State intervene as has happened to this one. So, instead of the utility beholden to the local community it’s beholden to the Governor. Can’t abide that, ya know?
how many others are a Billion in debt and have a useless Bio plant.
What about the local GRU community members who aren’t allowed to vote in city elections?
Sorry but the past facts show the voters of Gainesville have no interest in electing commoners who can completely and not delusional oversee GRU. GRUis responsible to the customers not an ideological mob who act foolishly at best.
The voters in the county don’t even get a voice in the “peoples” utility and we are more impacted since the city spends it’s ill gotten revenue on its needs, we don’t reap any benefits for any surplus funds. The city has already demonstrated how bad they can be at running GRU when you base it on the whims and pet projects of an elected official. We just HAD to set an example and have our very own Bio-plant, and you want to go back to that level of decision making?
What I don’t understand…. Why does that matter? It’s not like the millions of people in South Florida (and other areas of Florida) get to vote on FPL. The state still has power for saying no to rate increases, etc.
FOLLOW doesn’t make the idiotic decision that Gvilles elected commissioners have made
This whole mess could probably have been avoided if the original legislation to create the GRUA had specified that Authority members would be elected by owners of the utility (we, the citizens of Gainesville), rather than appointed by the governor.
As a GRU customer living outside of the city limits, I cannot over exaggerate the frustration all this talk of “put it to the voters” “the residents should decide”. What about us? I do not have statistics in front of me, but I believe somewhere around 30-50% of GRU customers will not be allowed to vote on this referendum because we live outside of the City. Placing a referendum on a City only election is the opposite of listening to the people. It doesn’t matter if you are for or against the GRU Authority, it is common sense that if you want to hear the public’s voice, then let all GRU customers vote. As it stood before the GRU Authority, those of us outside the city limits had no voice in how GRU was run. So don’t tell me that GRU was owned by the customers it served. Now we are being excluded, again, from voting on a referendum that will return control to the “customers”.
I never said that GRU was owned by the customers it serves. It is owned by the entity that started and paid for it: Gainesville.
Maybe those living outside the city limits of Gainesville should start their own public utility, and then they could price the service at whatever they want. Another alternative: allow additional electric companies to offer service in the areas outside Gainesville’s corporate limits. But the fact remains: Gainesville owns the utility, so Gainesville should control it. What the lege did was an abrogation of local control, a Soviet Union-style dictatorial action.
For a solid year or more, concerned, informed citizens stood before the City Commission and begged them NOT to engage in the Biomass plant. The City Commission paid them no heed whatsoever. That’s EXACTLY the representation you will have again if you vote to return the control of GRU back to the City Commission.