This is an excerpt from Gainesville Commissioner Bryan Eastman's May 14, 2023, Substack article, Preview: Gainesville in May, a personal blog not affiliated with the City of Gainesville in any way.
Finding Solutions after the GRU Takeover
May 14, 2023
I don’t know what to say that I didn’t say in my long blog post, “Correcting the Misinformation on GRU”.
The GRU Takeover bill, HB 1645, has been passed by the Senate, and is now sitting on the Governor’s desk for signing. If signed (which seems likely), the law will go into effect on July 1st, with the new GRU Authority board seated on October 1st with their first meeting at 6 p.m. on October 4th.
Other than that we don’t know much. Right now, Gainesville Regional Utilities and General Government are deeply entwined. We share human resources, health insurance, information technology, legal staff. We have a joint structure of development review, GRU uses taxpayer funded right of way for all utility services. How do you disentangle these things? Will a new board be antagonistic or partner with the City Commission to make all of this work?
Even if it is signed, will it be upheld? Former County Commission Hutch Hutchinson is raising money to fight the bill legally, but it’s not clear how all of that will turn out.
Nothing like this has ever been passed in Florida before. Our state constitution gives cities the power to conduct municipal services. There are also protections cities to have their powers taken from them, but the Constitution also gives the Legislature power to alter laws. That just begins the legal questions. Is this a state board or a local board? Is it an Independent Special District or an agency of the city? This is so unlike anything else that has ever happened in the history of Florida there isn’t a lot of case law on how any of this is supposed to work.
Not only that, but the bill as written is a mess. Some fundamental parts of how it works aren’t clear, like who’s responsible for employees, if we can issue municipal bonds for the utility, how budgeting is supposed to work, who’s responsible for purchasing. It’s a very, very poorly written bill that will soon be a part of our City’s Charter.
There’s a famous prayer I think about in times like these:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference
My job is to find solutions to problems and put my residents first. That’s what we are elected to do. We on the commission are responsible for 850 employees at GRU and 99,000 people who rely on GRU utilities. The priority has to be them, regardless of anything else, and that means standing up for our community in the face of these autocratic moves, but also working to ensure that this transition is smooth and works. We can’t cut off our nose to spite our faces.
So once this passes my plan is to direct staff to challenge this legally where possible, and simultaneously work to find solutions to make it work. That means better defining how the charter officers work together, where responsibilities lie between general government and GRU, updating our ordinances to reflect a split government, and creating service agreements & contracts to protect our services and taxpayers.
Because while Tallahassee politicians get by on inventing problems, at the local level we solve problems.
Read the full article for more from Bryan Eastman.
The LWV of Alachua County supports reforms to make Gainesville Regional Utility more financially sustainable but strongly opposes taking local control of our utility away from our residents. Alachua County voters rejected a ballot referendum to change GRU governance, but unlike a referendum, the current bill uses a process that excludes meaningful input from residents. Learn more about what we're doing to defend democracy and how you can help!
