Unlike in 2024, Gainesville voters will head to the polls on Tuesday without a temporary injunction issued by the Eighth Judicial Circuit. An approved referendum would mean the elimination of the Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) Authority. 

Judge George Wright ruled Wednesday against issuing a temporary injunction. This means if city voters approve the referendum, the Gainesville City Commission can enforce the results after certification on Nov. 6—barring any legal intervention in the meantime. 

GRU General Manager Ed Bielarski took the stand and said there have been no discussions with the city about a transition plan if the referendum passes and is enforced.    

Heading into the 2024 referendum, Wright allowed a temporary injunction. Later, he heard the merits of the case and ruled on two counts in the city of Gainesville’s favor and one count in the GRU Authority’s favor.  

That decision is now before the Florida First District Court of Appeals, with both sides appealing. 

In court on Wednesday, Wright said the GRU Authority failed this time to meet each of the four requirements needed for a temporary injunction. On each of the four arguments, or counts, Wright said the attorneys for the utility never proved a substantial likelihood of success.  

But Wright agreed that the referendum, if passed, would likely cause irreparable harm to the GRU Authority because it would be dissolved.  

The GRU Authority brought different arguments to Wright this time, arguing that the City Commission would be illegally expanding its extraterritorial power through the referendum and that the referendum violates equal protection under the 14th Amendment. 

The authority attorneys also reargued that the ballot language is confusing and fails to meet Florida law standards.  

GRU attorney Derek Perry said House Bill 1645, which created the GRU Authority, stripped the City Commission of the extraterritorial powers it once had as utility managers. He said the Gainesville charter has an asterisk because of the bill that limits its powers. 

But Sean McDermott, senior assistant city attorney, said the argument was only legal conjecture. He said the GRU Authority could not point to an actual asterisk and the limitations imposed by it. 

“Plaintiff makes arguments based on just stating legal conclusions in the sense that you have to read the charter with an asterisk, but is unable to specify exactly what that asterisk is that has legal authority to rule this case,” McDermott said. 

McDermott said the 2023 change to the city’s charter, made by HB 1645, created a new decisionmaker but never altered the city’s powers. 

Wright noted that the ballot language the GRU Authority argued against was essentially the language he wrote when presiding over the previous referendum lawsuit. 

“I think the only issue that I had at the prior hearing has been corrected,” Wright said. “I think you just copied what I put in my order.” 

McDermott confirmed it, saying they relied heavily on the judge’s order. He also said the GRU Authority’s issues with the language are stylistic and not actually about being misleading or false.  

But the GRU attorneys said the ballot question still hid the true intent of the referendum. Kiersten Ballou argued that the use of “City of Gainesville’s local public utilities” instead of GRU was misleading, said the question should name the charter officers who will oversee the utility and said the GRU Authority is separate from the directors.   

Ballou also said that the result of the ballot could be interpreted as a change that will happen to Gainesville residents’ utilities but not for customers in the unincorporated areas.  

As in the original case, the temporary injunction arguments also included detailed grammar lessons. This time with commas before the final antecedent in a sequence instead of prepositional modifiers.  

McDermott argued that when a final antecedent exists after a comma, it modifies an entire sequence of items and not just the last item. He said if a comma is not placed before the final antecedent, then it only modifies the last item of the sequence.  

He cited Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on the point.  

But Perry said his interpretation of the Municipal Home Rule Powers Act is that of two sequences separated by an “or.” Therefore, with or without the comma, his argument still stands.  

The members of the audience appeared to be awake after the argument.  

“I mean, it’s not the most eloquently written sentence I’ve ever read,” Wright said. “I was reviewing the history, and I don’t believe that’s been probably amended since 1973, that portion of it.” 

Regardless of a comma or no comma, the temporary injunction request was denied, leaving the GRU Authority’s future in the hands of the voters and, potentially, the First Florida District Court of Appeals.