Gainesville City Commission approves language of ballot referendum on GRU governance

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – During the afternoon session of the April 18 Gainesville City Commission meeting, the Commission unanimously approved language for a ballot referendum on GRU governance.

The draft ordinance prepared by the City Attorney’s Office would place a referendum on the November 5 ballot, asking voters whether they want to completely delete Article VII of the Charter of the City of Gainesville; this Article was created by HB 1645 and established the Gainesville Regional Utilities Authority as the governing board of GRU, the municipal utility.

Removal of Article VII would re-establish the City Commission as the governing board of the utility and also delete provisions that limit the Government Services Contribution transferred from the utility to the City and require that the governing board “consider only pecuniary factors and utility industry best practices standards, which do not include consideration of the furtherance of social, political, or ideological interests.”

The proposed ballot language is as follows:

“SHALL THE CITY OF GAINESVILLE CHARTER 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 THE GOVERNMENT SERVICES CONTRIBUTION AND UTILITY DIRECTIVES, AS PROPOSED BY ORDINANCE NO. 2024-_____?”

City Attorney Daniel Nee said they will also need a ballot title, which can be no more than 15 words (the proposed title is “CITY OF GAINESVILLE CHARTER AMENDMENT, LOCAL PUBLIC UTILITIES”). The summary (shown above) is limited to 75 words. The ordinance to put the referendum on the ballot must be approved by a 4/5 majority of the City Commission, which requires 6 votes, so Nee said they should schedule the two readings carefully to make sure every Commissioner can be at the meetings. Nee said that the change to the City’s Charter would be effective immediately if it is approved by the voters.

Ward: “What matters to me… is that the people make the choice on this.”

Mayor Harvey Ward said he would prefer to have the first reading at the Commission’s May 16 meeting and create a Special Meeting on May 23 for the second reading. He added, “And to set a bit of a tone for this: what matters to me, as I have said for more than a year now, is that the people make the choice on this. The people of Gainesville own these utilities, and it ought to be up to them – us – who is responsible for administering those utilities. That is the bedrock of this for me.”

Vice Mayor Cynthia Chestnut confirmed with the City Attorney that if only six Commissioners are present and they all vote for the ordinance, it will move forward.

Commissioner Bryan Eastman asked whether six votes would be necessary on both readings or just the second reading, and Nee said he wasn’t sure whether that had been challenged in court. He added, “Obviously the safer course is for you to have that supermajority on both readings.” Ward added that traditionally the Commission has required six votes at both readings.

Book: “Less language is better”

Commissioner Ed Book asked, “Because simpler is better, was it necessary to put at the end of this ‘and eliminating limitations on the Government Services Contribution and utility directives’? Because if it’s not, if it’s intuitive, that may be less language, and less language is better. It has nothing to do with trying to take away information for the voter.”

Nee said his office had looked at judicial opinions, and in one case, a ballot initiative was challenged because the ballot language didn’t detail several grandfathered provisions; he said courts have held that it is better to state “the ramifications of the change.”

Book said, “Does that seem like you have three different actions there? And is that understandable to someone and intuitive for somebody reading the ballot? Because it’s ‘get rid of something,’ ‘do something,’ and then ‘get rid of something’ – if those might be better ordered, that’s merely a comment on the order of things, to make sure that it is clear to voters.”

Nee said that the second and third parts describe the ramifications of the first part, which is deleting Article VII, and he clarified that it’s “really sort of four things… The chief purpose is to replace the appointed board with the elected board, and then the other ramifications flow from that.”

Chestnut: “I’m wondering if we should really spell out which Charter Officer you’re referring to here.”

Chestnut said she was concerned about the language that places responsibility with the City Commission “and Charter Officer.” She said, “I’m wondering if we should really spell out which Charter Officer you’re referring to here, and that would be the City Manager.”

Regarding the decision to put “Charter Officer” instead of “City Manager” in the ballot language, Nee said, “Part of the consideration was not to mislead anyone, to put personalities in place… There won’t be this City Manager always.” He said the Charter specifies that the utility will go back under the City Manager “by default.”

Ward said his preference would be to put the referendum on the ballot in November because that’s when “the largest number of people show up to the polls,” and he preferred the phrase “Charter Officer” rather than “City Manager,” he said, “because I don’t want it to become a personality-based sort of thing.” He agreed that the statements about eliminating limitations on the Government Services Contribution and utility directives are “confusing… I understand why it’s there, and I support it being there. I wish there were a better way to term it, but I don’t think that there is.”

Public comment

During public comment, Bobby Mermer from the Alachua County Labor Coalition said, “We don’t want to give the impression that a ‘Yes’ campaign had started, not just because this isn’t on the ballot yet, but also because we don’t want to give the impression that somehow this Commission is voting on the merits of a yes or no vote. So we’re patiently waiting to get past first and second reading so we can begin campaigning… Please get through first and second reading by the end of May, if everyone’s schedules allow.”

Janice Garry, President of the League of Women Voters, said, “As you know, HB 1645… stripped us of home rule, and that is the pillar of how our governance should happen. The League of Women Voters very much appreciates the diligence that you are putting into this referendum… and we will be working very diligently to educate voters on how we restrict our democracy and why home rule should be how we are governed and how our public utility should be governed.”

Susan Bottcher said she assumed the Commission would vote unanimously to put the referendum on the ballot and added, “There’s no doubt there’s going to be robust, public discussion about this. We know the people who oppose this are going to launch their own campaign; we’re going to make sure that we do our best to educate the public, educate our neighbors, educate our friends and our family so that they understand exactly what this is all about. I agree that it’s time to put an end to all the chaos.” 

Evelyn Foxx, President of the Alachua County Branch of the NAACP, agreed with the previous speakers and said, “The NAACP will do everything that we can to get the word out that this is something that is good for all the residents of Gainesville, and we thank you so much.”

After public comment, Ward asked whether there was anyone who wanted to speak against the referendum: “It is important to me that everyone is heard. I have expressed my hope that this is put before the people for a decision, but I don’t want anyone to feel that they are not heard in this process.”

Motions

Eastman made a motion to ask staff to bring the proposed ordinance back to the May 16 City Commission meeting for first reading. There were multiple seconds. The motion passed 7-0.

Ward reminded everyone that if the referendum is placed on the ballot, “the City of Gainesville will do no advocacy or education on this. That doesn’t mean individual elected officials cannot be part of a campaign, but the City of Gainesville will have nothing to do regarding advocacy or education on this, if it’s placed on the ballot.”

Chestnut said, “However, if local citizens wanted to form a PAC or run an education campaign, they could do that,” and Ward responded, “That would absolutely be their constitutionally guaranteed right.”

Nee asked for guidance about the dates of the meetings for the first and second readings, so Eastman made a motion to bring the proposed ordinance back for a second reading at the May 23 meeting and create a Special Meeting at 1:00 p.m. on that date. There were multiple seconds to the motion. The motion passed 7-0.

City Clerk Kristen Bryant said, “For clarity, we will cancel that May 23 [General Policy Committee meeting] in lieu of the Special Meeting.”