Following the lead of their colleagues in the House, the Florida Senate voted 29-6 to pass a bill that places constraints on municipal utilities while also permanently establishing the Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) Authority.
The bill (HB 1451) will now head to Gov. Ron. DeSantis for approval as the Florida First District Court of Appeal and Eighth Judicial Circuit continue to consider litigation that would dissolve the GRU Authority.
DeSantis signed a bill by former state Rep. Chuck Clemons, R-Newberry, in 2023 to create the authority, and he currently appoints the five board members.
State Sen. Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers, sponsored the bill while state Rep. Demi Busatta, R-Coral Gables, filed the mirror bill in the House. But in its final committee, Busatta added a 26-word amendment that preempts any changes to the GRU Authority without naming the entity in particular.
The Senate bill didn’t include the language, but on the Senate floor, Martin added Busatta’s amendment, drawing critique.
State Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, asked about the GRU preemption and, after hearing it was designed for Gainesville in particular, brought up recent referendum efforts that would do the opposite of Martin’s bill.
The Gainesville City Commission placed two referendums before voters that would remove the GRU Authority from the city charter and return utility control to the commission. Both referendums passed overwhelmingly but are caught in court.
The GRU Authority continues to dispute the referendum, especially because a large percentage of utility customers live outside city limits and could not participate in the vote.
Martin said the referendum information wasn’t in the bill but that he could look into it.
Smith said the referendum language likely was kept out of the bill in order to not draw attention to the fact that Gainesville voters were united against the Legislature’s actions. He then asked why the Senate should side against the referendums.
“We have the jurisdiction here in the Florida Legislature to make policy decisions, and this is the best policy,” Martin said. “After talking with individuals and stakeholders from the Gainesville area, this is where we landed.”
Even though the amendment impacts only GRU, no local meetings or hearings have been held on the issue. The Alachua County Legislative Delegation never addressed the amendment, nor have its members discussed the bill publicly except on the House and Senate floor.
Smith then wanted to know if the amendment had always been a part of the bill.
“Was the Gainesville utility issue at any point in your bill until you added it just now?” Smith questioned.
“I can go back and look,” Martin said of the amendment he had just added.
“I just want to know if this is an issue that the Florida Senate has vetted through the committee process,” Smith followed up.
“There’s a lot of discussions that we have,” Martin responded. “You’ve carried some bills. Like I said, I’m happy to look.”
“Just trying to get an answer,” Smith said. “I mean, did you decide behind closed doors then that this is the policy we should have? Because the Senate has not vetted this, and I still can’t get an answer yes or no. It seems like this was not included in in the Senate bill, and this is a last-minute change to overturn the will of the voters in Gainesville. Is that correct?”
“I’ve previously answered the best that I can the previous two responses,” Martin concluded.
State Sen. Jennifer Bradley, R-Green Cove Springs, represents northern Alachua County, including parts of Gainesville. She spoke out in support of the amendment.
Bradley reminded the Senate that governance of GRU had been on ongoing discussion even before the 2023 bill that created the authority. She said a “damning” audit before the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee prompted the changes, and since the authority was established, rates have gone down and debt has stabilized.
“Since that time, the tide is turning at GRU,” Bradley said. “It was a successful, important step that the Legislature took. Rates are coming down; debt is being stabilized.”
But she said the Gainesville City Commission unilaterally stepped in to strip the Legislature’s addition to the charter.
“This has to stop,” Bradley said. “The ratepayers deserve consistency and long-term stability in Gainesville. Your amendment does that, and it’s the right thing to do.”
State Sen. Stan McClain, R-Ocala, represents the southern portion of Alachua County. While he didn’t speak on the floor, he voted for the amendment and bill.
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A big thank you to the State Legislators for protecting the customers and ratepayers of GRU. Please keep GRU free of the City Commission and its failed endless tax and spent management mindset.
As well, the amendment protects GRU rate payers who live outside Gainesville city limits, who were not able to vote in the city’s referendum. The GRU Authority has been working successfully to put GRU on sound fiscal footing after the city’s failed expensive experiment in the biomass plant fifteen years ago. Thank you.
I’m well served by CLAY and GRU in my nearby unicorporated area and feel strongly that my concerns will be heard and NOT just those of a few who vote in the city of Gainesville. This is a great step forward and also preempts the court being involved any longer. Press on Ed – you’re doing great.
Total and utter undemocratic crap. This is taxation without representation. A board created in Tallahassee without the input or vote of the local residents and was further filled from Tallahassee again without the input or vote of the local residents.
Now after not one but two overwhelming votes against the authority this charade shit show of a state government is blatantly passing a law to screw over local residents and not allow them a voice in their own local governance. Not surprising since there is a Republican super majority in this shithole state because of gerrymandering. They have never cared for democracy, why would they start now?
Concerned – you haven’t been paying attention son. The population outside the city limits is LARGER than the people within the city limits yet only 10?15% of the city voters vote and they were deciding everything concerning GRU. The rest of us were SOL (look it up). Now we ALL have a say. Sorry to say this but our reps did a great job and we are now represented.We have been eating s*it too long outside the city limits. Finally a welcome change! 🙂
But more to the point, a majority (ca. 60 percent) of GRU rate payers live IN the city limits.
As for the voters in the referendum: 19 percent voted.
And we do NOT all have a say. Nobody has a say except for those appointed by the governor to the “Authority.” We do not vote them in or out of office, so we are NOT “represented.”
So instead of expanding a vote to all GRU customers, an actual democratic process, you support state government telling local government how it should be run? “Now we ALL have a say.” How stupid are you? Did you vote on the board being created or for the members of the board? No because NO ONE DID. That’s the dame point!
“Even though the amendment impacts only GRU, no local meetings or hearings have been held on the issue. The Alachua County Legislative Delegation never addressed the amendment, nor have its members discussed the bill publicly except on the House and Senate floor.”
This tells you all you need to know. At least the senator from Orlando had the guts to publicly ask the pertinent questions while our local delegation sits silently in the shadows.
This is politics at its worst. Sen Martin pretended he didn’t know if the referendum information was in the bill. Rubbish. If he honestly didn’t know, then he is terribly uninformed. If he did know, then he was basically lying to the senate and the public.
Sen Jennifer Bradley says the rates are coming down. I’ve had numerous people say their GRU bills are the highest they’ve ever been. GRU had stability before the governor appointed unqualified people. As far as the debt, GRU was highly rated by bonding agencies before this mess started. Even so, the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee made demands of the city that the city fully enforced! But the legislature passed HB 1645 anyway. This is nothing short of a state legislature determined to take over a municipal utility and is unprecedented in this country.
Senator Martin says he talked with individuals and stakeholders in the Gainesville area. There was no meeting. There was no invitation to be a part of the discussion. Whoever he talked with was not one of the thousands of voters who have consistently, increasingly voted against the bill he sponsored. Was he lying? Who, exactly did he talk with and when did he talk with them?
Senator Martin represents Ft. Myers. Rep. Busatta represents Coral Gables. Apparently, a GRU lobbyist presented the bill to them. This is sneaky, corrupt politics at its worst. The legislators who represent Alachua County went along with it. Again, without having public meetings or working with our city leadership. Shame, shame, shame on all of you.
Was it not “dirty politics” when the city to amended its charter for the sole purpose of bypassing the amendment that created the GRU Authority? Historical context is needed. What led to the creation of the GRU Authority was the financial mess caused by the construction of the biomass plant fifteen years ago which led to higher GRU rates and over $1.5 billion in GRU debt. Not only that but the city had been milking GRU like a cow. For good reason, we have an independent GRU Authority which is charged with serving the financial interests and utility requirements of citizens inside and around Gainesville.
No, “we” don’t have an “Authority.” What “we” have is a board appointed by the governor over which “we” have no control and which was forced on us. In other words, the utility that our city built and paid for was taken from us.
No, it was not taken from you. The city still owns GRU. The difference is that the GRU Authority, not the city commission, manages GRU. Nothing has been taken from you. The utility that the city built and paid for, still “belongs” to you, the citizen.
Nobody who I know of objected to the bill itself that had criteria for a municipal utility communicating with customers outside city limits. That bill was written with proper process, discussion and bipartisan support.
The huge objection was to the last minute amendment that cemented state authority of GRU. Want to know the irony? The first paragraph of the bill mandates public meetings for users outside city limits before any substantial change can be made to their services. “A new agreement or an extension…must be in writing…” and requires a public meeting. The amendment was tacked on without any public meeting in Gainesville. Nada. Nothing. The amendment was hypocritical to the first paragraph of the bill.
Two of the most glaring things that I do not understand about this who situation:
1. Supposedly, the creation of this GRU “Authority” came about because of complaints from utilities customers who live outside the city limits and so could not vote to “throw the bums [the Gainesville City Commission ] out.” They labeled the situation as “taxation without representation.” The irony now is: those non-resident customers STILL have no control over who sets the rate! If control of the the city’s utility had to be removed from the City Commission, why wasn’t it turned over to an entity voted on by all rate payers, both in and out of the city?
2. Why do politicians from places like Fort Myers and Coral Gables feel they should control a strictly local situation in Alachua County?
No. 1: The GRU Authority is the entity that the state legislature created to represent all rate payers inside and outside the city of Gainesville. Meetings of the GRU Authority are open to the public.
No. 2: While state representatives are elected by their local constituencies, they also have a say in what happens throughout the state. The city of Gainesville received a charter from the state in 1907. What happens anywhere in Florida falls within the jurisdiction of the state legislature and the elected governor.