The Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) Authority empowered its attorney to file suit against a city-wide referendum expected to pass the City Commission on Thursday, while pushing back on “misinformation.”
The GRU Authority’s Wednesday meeting was also the last for Director Craig Carter, who resigned. A former city commissioner, Carter joined the authority in 2023 as part of the first slate of board members.
The Gainesville City Commission passed a preliminary ordinance last week to move forward with a referendum that asks if voters want to eliminate the GRU Authority. The referendum mirrors a November 2024 referendum except for changes in wording to correct what an Alachua County judge called misleading language.
Although almost 73% of voters approved the initial referendum, GRU CEO Ed Bielarski said the results from November don’t matter, pointing to the judge’s ruling.
Bielarski said the people didn’t know what they were voting for, and the city is trying to redo a referendum while the utility’s rights in court are still underway.
“There’s this little thing called the appeal process that we’re all allowed to engage in. We’re allowed to use the court system as citizens and as organizations. We’re protected by that appeal process,” Bielarski said.
The judge’s ruling called the ballot misleading because of a single modifier to the noun “charter officers.” However, on a separate issue, he said the city of Gainesville has the right to change its charter, even eliminating a section added by the Florida Legislature.
GRU is appealing that second issue and hoping a higher court will overturn the decision, saying the city doesn’t have the authority to remove a section of the charter installed by the Florida Legislature. The case is now in the hands of Florida’s First District Court of Appeals.
In the meantime, the Gainesville City Commission wants to hold a second referendum with corrected ballot language to take advantage of the judge’s ruling. But the second referendum, which is estimated to cost the city at least $200,000, is likely to end up back in court and waiting on the appeal process.
The GRU Authority said Wednesday that its attorney can file a lawsuit to stop the referendum.
According to GRU’s backup documents for Wednesday’s meeting, if the authority didn’t file a lawsuit over the second referendum, the City Commission could try to enforce the results of a successful referendum and wrest control of the utility from the authority even as the appeal process moves forward.
The GRU Authority’s position hasn’t changed from when it argued before the courts that the City Commission lacks the power to place a referendum that reverses what the state legislature has done.
At the end of the meeting, directors thanked Carter for his service on the authority.
“We owe you a debt of gratitude for your tireless support of this community, for our customers, for GRU the organization,” Chair Eric Lawson said.
Carter recapped some of the decisions he’d made and said it was not fun in the beginning, starting with a two-and-a-half-hour notice that he’d be on the authority. He said attacks on GRU personnel started that night.
Carter said the hardest decision was to fire Tony Cunningham, though he said he stands by it. That vote happened almost exactly one year ago, and Carter called the attacks on Cunningham inexcusable.
“Tallahassee was going to keep coming after Tony until it hurt the whole utility, in my opinion,” Carter said.
He added that he’s always supported City Attorney Dan Nee and never questioned his ability or integrity. But Carter said Nee was put in a position he couldn’t operate from.
Lastly, he said he proudly wears his GRU gear and is honored to represent the utility’s employees.
“I’m leaving the utility in great hands with the executives out there and this board, and it has been an honor to serve with all of you,” Carter said.
So, GRU doesn’t want to allow the Citizens of the City voting on the issue. Any wonder why?
The citizens of the city don’t need to vote. The state legislature has already handed down a decision and that should stand. The liberal city commission doesn’t need to have control again as they cannot make good business decisions and waste the rate payers money.
Wrong. The lege took control of the utility that we owned and created an “authority” to which the governor appoints his donors and sycophants.
That’s a “taking” or even a robbery.
And, that’s wrong.
We need to vote to get our utility back.
If the lege really wanted to create an authority to replace the City Commission as decision maker, it should have been an elective group, not appointed, so that we citizens could vote on whom we wanted to control our utility.
GRU really loves to take the voice of voters away from them. That board should not exist!
Let me suggest that the GRU Authorities seem far too personally invested in this issue. Instead of being an apolitical body administering the utility in the public interest, they act like owners/stockholders/investors. Perhaps they should quit spending $$$ on lawsuits and step aside, letting the city and the state hammer out the issues.
GRU, the utility, serves the people.
The GRU Authority and CEO serve their own self-preservation.
The Authority so badly wants to hold on their their (unaccountable) power that they refuse to accept the court’s ruling that the city, and thus The People, have a constitutional right to amend our charter. They are wasting even more city tax dollars by filing yet another frivolous lawsuit to prevent you from voting on doing just that. This is on top of their previous lawsuit that tried to say your vote doesn’t matter.
In 2018 and 2024 voters spoke loud and clear that we want to return to local control of our public utility. We need to do it again only because of the Bielraski-led Authority’s refusal to listen to the people. They want you to be silenced. As Authority member Haslam said at the May 2024 meeting, “(they) couldn’t care less about (what citizens want) because (they’re) not elected.”
Finally and for the record, if it were legally possible for GRU customers in the county to vote on the referendum, that is what would be done. Unfortunately that is not the case per state law. Of course, county GRU customers can become city residents by voluntarily annexing into the city at any time. Not only would your GRU surcharges automatically disappear, but you’d be able to vote in all city elections. Not to put too fine a point on it, by annexing into the city when this new referendum passes and is implemented you’d be able to vote for (or vote out) the people who govern GRU….not like the current situation where NO ONE has the ability to say who governs our utility.