The Florida First District Court of Appeal issued an injunction Thursday morning for the city of Gainesville’s local public utilities referendum.
The injunction allows the Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) Authority to remain in management control while the courts settle the underlying legal issues surrounding the referendum and the authority.
The injunction comes after the referendum to dissolve the GRU Authority passed with 75% of the vote on Tuesday.
GRU officials celebrated the injunction as a protection of their legal rights and the legal system.
“From my perspective, this is simply about following the legal process and the rule of law,” Bielarski said in an email to GRU employees. “We believed it was unlawful for the city to hold a special election aimed at dissolving the Authority while we were awaiting the results of an appeal.”
Meanwhile, city of Gainesville leaders said the GRU Authority delayed legal motions and disenfranchised voters while fighting for custody of the utility.
“This is wrong,” Mayor Harvey Ward said. “I’m not going to argue with the courts. Certainly, they’re their own separate branch. This is wrong.”
City Attorney Dan Nee outlined the history of the legal arguments during the city’s Thursday meeting and reiterated the delays taken by the GRU Authority’s lawyers.
Nee said if the GRU Authority had acted as if the upcoming referendum were truly an emergency, they could have filed their injunction motions earlier. Instead, the authority waited 117 days, giving no time to hear the case on merits.
Plus, the city had requested that the appeal case from the first referendum, in November 2024, be expedited before the Florida First District Court of Appeal—an action opposed by the GRU Authority.
Nee said the appeal court is preserving its right to hear the underlying arguments from the first referendum since not granting the injunction would dissolve the GRU Authority and render all the lawsuits moot.
“Their aim here, I think it’s fair to say, is to preserve their jurisdiction,” Nee said of the appeal court. “Our aim is to prompt them to exercise their jurisdiction as expeditiously as possible because it is mindful on us that we have the will of the voters to be concerned about, which I’m sure they’re concerned about as well.”
However, this outcome is not unexpected. In fact, Nee predicted that the results of the second referendum could easily be paused while the original case and Home Rule issues were settled.
He told the City Commission in June, when it voted on the second referendum, that the case might not result in an immediate return to managerial control of the utility.
The appeal court has not yet set a hearing date for the second referendum. Nee estimated that the legal timeline would be a matter of months.
On the initial referendum, if the appeal court agrees with the Eighth Judicial Circuit Court, who said the city can amend its charter to remove the GRU Authority but called the 2024 ballot language confusing, then the city would have the second referendum to point to instead of issuing a third referendum.
For now, the status quo remains.