City Commission instructs staff to move forward with transition to GRU Authority, launch education campaign, continue with lawsuit

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At the July 27 General Policy Committee (GPC) meeting, the Gainesville City Commission discussed a proposal by Commissioner Bryan Eastman to specify tasks the City needs to undertake as part of a transition to a governor-appointed Authority that is slated to begin governing Gainesville Regional Utilities in October 2023. 

Mayor Harvey Ward said he wants to continue to have a discussion item about the GRU transition on GPC agendas through the end of September “as a placeholder… just in case we need to do things… I want the public to understand I’m not talking about, you know, putting our fists up when it comes to this, but there may be procedural issues that need to have action taken. Now, if somebody wants to put their fists up as well, then that’s a different thing.”

Eastman said he put a picture of Governor DeSantis on the title page of his presentation “because that is the man who now controls Gainesville Regional Utilities Authority, not because I felt like throwing my fists up.”

Eastman said the lawsuit filed last Friday by the City “does a very good job of explaining all of the issues with the [Authority], things we’ve talked about here numerous times related to how this impacts our funds, how this takes away a lot of the rights of a lot of our residents.” He said his purpose was to “send very clear direction to City staff… that while we are opposed to this, and we will continue to hold the GRU Authority accountable and will continue to press forward in litigation… And my intention is to make sure that we are transitioning as seamlessly as possible because that is what is now in our Charter until a court comes out and says something differently.”

Eastman recommended asking staff to negotiate Service Level Agreements on services shared between General Government (GG) and GRU, review and update over 40 ordinances that enable “the General Manager or his/her designee” to authorize City action, educate the public on the transition, and continue to seek declaratory relief. 

In response to a section of Eastman’s presentation titled “Creating stability at GRU,” GRU General Manager Tony Cunningham said what GRU is focusing on “is maybe a little different than what was stated on the previous slide. I think we’re maintaining the stability of the utility. The utility is stable. We are operating; we are serving our customers each and every moment. 

Shared services between GRU and General Government

Cunningham said staff had identified over 32 ways that GRU and GG are intertwined, including payroll, the fleet, Human Resources, and Information Technology (IT). He said that GG and GRU already have cost allocation plans for paying for those services, and they are focusing on further documentation of that. 

City Manager Cynthia Curry said that the pension obligation bond and Equity and Inclusion Department are additional examples of shared services between GG and GRU and IT is one of the biggest areas–in that case, GRU provides those services to GG. She said her goal is for all the Charter Officers to sit down with the Finance Director and City consultants in the next week or so to understand all of the cost allocation plans. 

Education about changes in the utility’s governing body

Eastman said his recommendation for education is intended to inform GRU customers that the City Commission is no longer the body that makes “changes within their utility… For over 100 years, Gainesville Regional Utilities customers have had the ability to speak directly to the people that make changes within their utility. And they can still do that, but there’s no direct accountability; that all goes through the Governor at this point.” He recommended putting notices on the City and GRU websites, notifying residents about the change in governance, and changing the branding of GRU to state that it is “Governed by GRU Authority.” He also favored letting GRU customers know that the City is seeking declaratory relief.

Update on the lawsuit

City Attorney Daniel Nee said the lawsuit has now received a case number (37-2023-CA-001928), and a judge (Judge Angela Dempsey) has been assigned. He said he hopes that a hearing on the City’s Motion for Temporary Relief will be “forthcoming expeditiously, within weeks–nothing happens that fast, but that’s really as fast as possible.”

Motion from Eastman

Eastman made a motion to implement the recommendations on the slide below, and Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut seconded the motion. 

Cunningham: Not much will change for customers

Commissioner Ed Book wondered whether it was wise to launch an education campaign while the City is involved in litigation on the issue, and Cunningham said he thought of it in terms of how the transition will affect the customer: “Nothing is really going to change as we transition into a new board. They’re still going to pay the bills the same way; you’re still going to receive service the same way.” He said GRU could put information on its website about the status of the bill and, when the Authority starts meeting, publish meeting notices. Eastman agreed that his motion referred to “fairly simple things like that,” but the main change is “when push comes to shove, where do you finally go, and it will not be to your locally elected representatives; it will be to a board that is appointed by the Governor.”

Timeline for the lawsuit

Book asked Nee about the timeline for the lawsuit, and Nee said, “This sort of timeline is completely out of our hands. We will seek an expedited hearing and seek to have judicial intervention as soon as possible. No one likes uncertainty; that’s not good for anyone involved in this process.” He said he hoped a hearing could be scheduled in six to eight weeks, but “I think this was a very robust legislative session, and I think there are a tremendous number of challenges to legislation that came out of this session, both in state and federal courts.” He said that challenges to legislation must be filed in the 2nd Circuit and the Tallahassee Division because of “home venue privilege” in cases against State entities, so the volume of cases may delay any hearings.

“Not just customers but owners”

Commissioner Casey Willits said he thought education should focus on not just customers but owners: “I want owners to know that their ability to control their utility through local, close-to-them government, where they can run into their board at Publix has been changed.” Authority members, however, are required to be local residents who are GRU customers and qualified Gainesville electors, except for the one county resident, so residents may also encounter them in Publix.

Willits said if people have complaints, “They need to complain to the Authority and the person who appoints the Authority, of course, is the Governor, so also to the Governor… [Also] owners… need to be educated that the structure of their City, their rights as owners, and really their experience as a voter in the democracy that was Gainesville, it’s been changed. And I don’t think it’s a small thing. The State pushed something into our Charter, and they didn’t get a vote on it–which, the nature of a Charter is, like, it is the people who have decided to form this government.”

“Explain to people that the utility is good”

Mayor Harvey Ward said he thought an educational campaign would be useful because “it helps keep us all on message… We have the version that we can point to and say, ‘Thank you for asking’… I can hand you a sheet, I can send you to the website where it explains it more fully.”

Ward said he also supported “a campaign to explain to people that the utility is good and the services we offer continue to be stellar. We win awards for this–the services that we offer on behalf of our owners to the customers, often the same people, have been fantastic… I think it’s useful to make that case.”

Eastman’s motion passed unanimously, with Commissioner Reina Saco voting remotely.