Bielarski: No longer can we dream
Letter to the editor
Despite all the gnashing of teeth, handwringing, and pontificating from the dais this past Thursday night, not one elected official – not a single one – was able to put the blame where it truly belongs – at City Hall’s doorstep. Instead, Mayor Ward, Commissioner Eastman, and others deflected from the real reasons for the 29% property tax increase, comfortable in simply blaming the State and the loss of a sizeable portion of GRU’s transfer for the City’s ills. Like Letterman, here are my top five reasons why the City is in a pickle:
- 5. GRU subsidization of the City through support services – For decades, General Government has been unwilling to pay GRU for its actual cost of Information Technology (IT) services. Regularly underpaid by $2 to $4 million a year, GRU has funded approximately $20 to $40 million of IT services over the past decade.
- 4. Solar Feed-in-Tariff – The little-understood program where approximately 400 GRU customers installed rooftop solar panels in exchange for being paid on the order of 10 times the cost of wholesale electricity GRU could otherwise purchase. The reverse Robin Hood program has forced the remainder of GRU customers to subsidize those 400 GRU customers by upwards of $50 million since the program started.
- 3. The race to become a New American City – Apparently it takes a lot of employees to become the next great New American City. As the chart below shows, General Government (all City services outside of GRU) grew by 244 employees over the past 7 years, in such areas as the Department of Mobility, Sustainability, and that fan favorite – the Department of Doing.
At the same time, during my tenure as GRU’s General Manager, we reduced GRU’s workforce by 50 positions. If General Government (GG) had held a similar line on hiring, it would have had 1,265 employees on its payroll in FY 2022, not 1,580 – 315 fewer people!
Assuming the additional positions cost the city $50,000 (with all the benefits), the total impact of this bloated City payroll budget has grown to almost $16 million a year or somewhere around $50 million over the past seven years. The incremental buildup of those 315 additional employees is the main reason GG’s budget has grown from approximately $100 million to over $150 million a year.
- 2. Excessive transfers from GRU to the City – While GRU’s cash reserves were being depleted by the fiscal impacts of the Biomass PPA and plant, the commission kept pulling money out of the utility. From 2018 through 2021, the commission demanded GRU hand over $68 million more than what they earned! This fact may have been the single biggest reason for Clemons’ bill passing through the Florida legislature.
Even worse, for decades GRU has paid the commission all that it earns. Whereas a business typically retains profits for investment, GRU has not been allowed to re-invest in internal IT or make plans to replace its 5 power plants that are over 40 years old under the governance of the city commission. If GRU had retained 30% of its profit like Tallahassee, JEA, Orlando, and Lakeland, GRU’s reserves would be well over $200 million higher today.
- 1. Biomass PPA – The one-sided, onerous, Biomass Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) approved by the commission in 2009 was a $2.5 billion poison pill for the community. The annual cost of the Biomass PPA was $75 million whether the plant ran or not. Even with the historic buyout of the contract that saved $1 billion of that obligation, $660 million in debt was left on GRU’s books. Today, the cost of the Biomass debt is around $40 million a year. Over the 30-year life of the biomass plant, the PPA will cost the city $1.5 billion!
Bottom line: Without 5) GRU’s IT subsidization of General Government, 4) the Solar Feed-in-Tariff, 3) overstaffing as a result of racing to be a New American City, 2) the excess transfers to the City, and 1) the ill-advised Biomass PPA, the City of Gainesville and GRU would be in a much different place. In fact, we’d conceivably be looking at a debt-free utility ready to face the environmental challenges with strong funding and a powerful credit rating. Instead, the once-prominent utility is weakened, and the Governor has been forced to step in. That’s right, it’s not Clemons’ fault. Nor is it Keith Perry’s or the Governor’s. It is the fault of GRU’s governing bodies over the past two decades, which have used GRU as a piggybank for all that they could dream of.
Commissioner Casey Willits inadvertently said it best: “We have pivoted from thinking about our biggest, greatest, grandest dreams in Gainesville to what we have to do to survive.” Welcome to the real world, commissioner, albeit two decades too late.
For those that want to read more, my book, “The City that lost control,” is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.
Ed Bielarski, Gainesville
Ed Bielarski is a former General Manager of GRU.
The opinions expressed by letter or opinion writers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AlachuaChronicle.com. Letters may be submitted to info@alachuachronicle.com and are published at the discretion of the editor.
Concise summary of how several City Commissions slowly killed the golden goose. The voters are to blame as well because they continued to support the ideas of the Commissioners or just failed to get out and vote for the opposition.
Who brought that United Nations agenda here locally? Former Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan…Solar feed in tariff? That was Hanrahan…Biomass plant? That was Hanrahan… they went hook, line, and sinker for cap and trade, carbon credits, carbon footprint….
Follow the money: If an entity held planted pine, there was a fortune to be made by 1) harvesting and selling trees to GRU and 2) acquiring ‘carbon credits through replanting. and 3) selling those carbon credits to GRU. A license to print money.
Harvey Ward is more humble than Bielarski. Ed, Ed, Ed…blah, blah, blah.
What does Ward have to not be humble about? I’m glad we have Gomer Pyle for mayor – nice and humble.
Why haven’t we seen or heard from Poe at all? Have his attorneys advised him to remain silent for some unknown reason?
Where’s Ms. piggy Hanrahan? She’s been remaining silent since she ruined our utility. She lost the airport to the Gainesville Alachua Couny Regional Airport Authority Act (GACRAA) during her tenure and her stupidity caused the loss of our electrical Utility. Both times the state had to step in…with the airport it, was democrats Ed Jennings & Rod Smith that took control from the city and made the airport authority…
Yeah. There was no monthly report from airport director Rick Crider back then about landing fees received and they extended the runway without permits clearing wetlands..that was a big cover up. They removed CH35 of the municipal codes after that. Marion Radson city attorney was around and contributed to that…it was right there and simple. They F’d that up…it turned out good with the airport authority like how it will be good with the utility authority…thank you Chuck Clemons & Keith Perry!
What’s humble got to do with anything? We’re looking for intelligence, common sense and leadership — nowhere to be found when it comes to the City and GRU.
Mr. Bielarski – keep speaking the truth. History is going to remember you well.
He hasn’t gone back to the very beginning of how & why? Where did the marching orders come from? I know why…it’s where net 0 by 2050 and great reset comes from….
Local leaders have dreams… they’re wet with their imaginations on what other fiscally irresponsible projects they can spend taxpayers’ monies on.
Mr. Bielarski,
I read your book as soon as it came out, my wife bought a separate copy. I’m sure the powers that be wished you had gone back to where you came from after firing you! We are certainly glad you didn’t. Run for office, keep stirring the pot, we need it.
I have lived in Gainesville for 48 years paid more than average taxes, owned property and businesses. Until you started telling the story I had no idea that the local government were being such bad stewards of our money. Keep up the good work.
Sadly, the same Party that thinks more personal freedom means more gumment too, has been in charge. Elected by the 3% of city who never learned logic in high school.
Instead of continually blaming Gainesville’s ills on the 3% that keep electing these goons, the focus should be on the 90+% who don’t vote.The 3% are simply rubbing their hands in glee.
Bullsh!t! We’re outnumbered by lefty libtards here….mask wearers and those who want Vax passports who need to go to their safe place if you say Trump….superhero’s who stayed home and got payed not to work.
As Mr. Peabody has mentioned, Democrats outnumber Republicans in Alachua County by an almost 2:1 margin.
Clearly indicative of why asses get elected more than pachyderms.
Ed, and now for the bad news.
No amount of numerical evidence is going to win or sway anyone from the leftist position that math is a tool of conservatives and not to be trusted.
It isn’t clear what effect preaching more to one choir is going to have in subsequent elections and, more importantly, on a city population becoming less receptive to diverse and innovative ideas.
Gainesville doesn’t need more political leadership at this juncture. It needs parents who can exercise good judgement on behalf of the city even when it is at their own partisan disinterest. The city hasn’t had that for a long time since being manipulated into a false perception it was bigger – or could be – than it was.
So, Ed, ‘read your book and enjoyed the anecdotal personal references. If this serves as a ‘closure’ for you, I get it. If this serves as a bid for political gain, you’re wasting your time.
Sometimes, just winning the GRU battle is all one can do as the war is never-ending.
Consider how ignorant is the average person. By definition, half of the population is even MORE ignorant. And THAT, my friends, is the fatal flaw with democracy. We have lots of people who vote to transfer wealth from those who worked hard to earn it to those who didn’t. No corporation lets non-stockholders vote. But non taxpayers vote all the time. They have no incentive to learn about the issues, they have no skin in the game. The local political machine remains in power by making promises to those whose votes are driven by envy. This is why democracies succumb to death by bankruptcy. How long will Gainesville taxpayers tolerate such malfeasance before they vote with their feet?
Abolish Gainesville city government now!
Mr Bielarski ran for mayor only 9 months ago, and his seeming position now, that Clemons, Perry, the GOP legislature, and the Governor did the right thing by taking over control of GRU was not part of his campaign. One hopes that if he had won, he would have resisted that extreme and hostile takeover and I think you could bet on that. Now that he has sided with the city’s attackers, perhaps he needs to be reminded now that Perry received $100k illegally and secretly from FPL (?), that he and Clemons have had designs on GRU for awhile, and most importantly, that the bill was a done deal when introduced hurriedly by Clemons. It is a fact that there was essentially no expert opinion presented, no public opinion allowed (less than a minute each), and no committee hearings of significance.
If he is correct on all his criticisms, and if the state has a legal right to confiscate control of something it doesn’t own – and that will be tested in the courts – one must assume that the state would also have the right to set guidelines and goals for the city to match without stealing control of it’s major asset and assigning that control to a board appointed by a governor with no experience in any business, let alone a utility, with a decidedly hostile and punitive approach to those he disagrees with politically, and a record of appointing rigid ideologues, GOP party hacks, and religious fanatics and to a board which will otherwise be unaccountable to the city and it’s voters.
Surely that can’t be the outcome Mr Bielarski would favor if he were mayor instead of the guy who beat in him an unfriendly election for that office. One hopes his loyalty to the city and it’s citizens would trump his dislike of the current mayor and the commission.
Do you accept the facts I recited, or are you a fact-denier Jazzman?
I think Jazzy failed History, Math , and Reality somewhere along the way. It goes without saying his repetitive comments must be his therapy. He will get past the denial stage in a couple of months, maybe.
Mr Bielarski, I do not know the facts in this very complicated situation and of course defer to your considerable command of them. However, in my comment I think I clearly implied that even if you are correct on all you recite, that still should not – in my opinion – lead to the theft of control of the city’s property from it’s citizens by those hostile to it and with long standing design on claiming it, and without careful deliberation including both much public and expert opinion. It is not debatable that Clemons rushed the bill through, which was rubber stamped by his GOP buddies, and that he is less than an objective observer of the situation.
I am interested in why you apparently think this power grab away from the citizens, is justified, when other means must be available for the state to enforce standards and goals. If they don’t have that power, than surely they also don’t have the more extreme power for this hostile takeover. I hope the courts find against the state and for the citizens of Gainesville. It’s their utility, not Clemon’s, Perry’s, DeSantis’s, or anyone’s in Tallahassee.
Well stated, Jazzman.
Regardless of Bielarski’s actual intent, the dye has been cast and the lawsuit will be decided after more city/county monies are spent.
Hopefully, either way, it will mean better future governance and control by ‘local citizens’ of what used to be a cherished resource.
Due to the long term ineptness of our City government, I am looking forward to moving out of Gainesville. It’s getting to expensive if you’re retired and on a fixed income. My GRU bill went up by 69% this month. They waste money, allow our roads to deteriorate, and ignore the needs of the residents of East Gainesville.
Wrong on the FIT program. Very little of that allotment went to rooftop homeowners. The vast majority went to large business’s created to profit from this program. Mostly out of area owners.
Let’s not forget that highly paid GRU management officials researched and designed the solar feed in tariff program approved by the City Commission.