May 2, 2024

GRU Authority Board Member Appointments

Two big changes will be coming to GRU in May, one from the Governor and one from the Gainesville City Commission.

In mid-May the Governor is set to select a new, five-person board to oversee Gainesville Regional Utilities. The previous board all resigned last month en masse after a judge told them he was planning to rule against them being legally constituted. Instead of letting that happen they resigned, which may have been for the best.

For some background: HB 1645, the GRU Takeover bill, clearly stated that 4/5 of the members needed to live within the limits of the City of Gainesville, but the Governor ignored that and only appointed one city resident. Chuck Clemons and others doubled down on this and made some weird arguments about how the Governor didn’t really need to follow the law, but a judge disagreed. This was thanks to a lawsuit by Gainesville Residents United, a group led by former County Commissioner Hutch Hutchinson and other community members.

It’s a strange end to a strange board. Almost immediately upon being appointed the Gainesville Sun reported that a majority did not live in the City, in direct contradiction to the law. In response one board member, Tara Ezzell, resigned immediately since she didn’t even receive GRU electricity. Shortly thereafter another member threatened to resign because a vote didn’t go his way.

The Authority was created to have “diverse” “experts” overseeing the utility, but instead the Authority consisted of all white Republicans with no utility experience.

And some of the experience was questionable. One board member had previously run an oil company that was found guilty of mass polluting the Gulf of Mexico. His company was found by the Department of Justice of polluting the Gulf of Mexico with oil “discharges” and hiding it from regulators through a toxic “mask” chemical distributed by a complex system of pipes to disburse the oil. The company, ATP Oil & Gas, was fined $41 million by the DOJ and subsequently went bankrupt.

Another member was a business owner who also worked as a professional magician with a series of DVD’s to teach people how to perform magic tricks. My personal favorite was “Magic Tricks Fore Golfers” which was filmed at the City’s own Ironwood Golf Course. You can still buy the DVD on Amazon if you’re interested.

All this aside, the Authority board could have been worse, for sure, but they caused some issues. They suddenly and drastically reduced payments for services to the city, rolled back preferences for small & veteran-owned businesses, and greatly reduced payments for rooftop solar homeowners.

But they also avoided some of the worst instincts of the right-wing activists that got them there. They were evenly split on totally gutting their payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (GSC) funds to the City, which would have been devastating to our city budgets. They didn’t clear out the leadership of GRU, as Chuck Clemons and others were calling on them to do.

The former chair, Craig Carter, has said he will not be reapplying. So what comes next? Will the governor select right-wing activists? Qualified people? Will he even appoint in May, or will he just sit on it until after the election?

Only time will tell, and things are going to be even more complicated in the meantime…

GRU Authority Ballot Referendum

Whoever Gov. DeSantis appointed to serve on this board may be all moot in six months anyway, as the City Commission is putting a complete elimination of the GRU Authority on the ballot November 5, 2024.

As I wrote in last month’s article, the City Commission has the authority to alter our Charter as per Florida Statutes 166.031, and that’s what we’re doing. By unanimous approval last month we approved this language to show up on your November 5th ballot:

Local Public Utilities

Shall the Charter of the City of Gainesvile be amended to delete Article VII, eliminating the governor-appointed Gainesville Regional Utilities Authority and its appointed administrator that manage, operate, and control the City of Gainesville’s local public utilities, and placing that responsibility with the elected City Commission and Charter Officer; and eliminating limitations on Government Services Contribution and operational directives, as proposed by ordinance No. ______?

If this happens the GRU Authority will be dissolved as soon as the vote is certified and Gainesville Regional Utilities will be placed back under the City Commission, albeit in a slightly different format than before. Before the GRU General Manager reported directly to the City Commission, now they’ll report to the City Manager. This is the structure most common in other municipal utilities, such as Tallahassee, Newberry, and Ocala, and is a much better governance design going forward.

This referendum is going to be alongside a stacked election ballot in November. This will be the last item on your ballot, but right above it will be the right to abortion, legalized recreational marijuana, the US Senate race, and the president of the United States. There will be two [additional City Commission] votes needed for this with a super majority vote, which [are] scheduled for May 16th and May 23rd.

You can read more of LWV of Alachua County's role in the recent vote and a history of actions and updates on the GRU controversy in our Article and Action Alert. Follow all of our Action Alerts for quick things you can do to get involved and have your voice heard this election season.