Gainesville City Commission unanimously passes previously-tabled GRU bond resolution in Special Meeting

BY JENNIFER CABRERA
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At today’s Special Meeting, the Gainesville City Commission voted unanimously – with three members absent – to approve the Gainesville Regional Utilities bond resolution they tabled at their previous meeting. The meeting lasted less than 10 minutes.
The sole action item on the agenda was a request from the GRU Authority to approve a bond resolution that would allow GRU to extend and renew debt that will expire in 2024.
City Attorney Daniel Nee said the resolution before the Commission was the same as the one they considered on December 14 and that it is “designed to sort of, to recognize the changes to our City Charter effectuated last year by the legislature, where governance over the utility systems, including its debt portfolio, was transferred to a different public body, different governing board… It comes forward with the request, specifically, from the GRU Authority and the recommendation of our office, as well, in order to facilitate those ongoing practices.”
Cintya Ramos, Executive Chief of Staff to the City Manager, said the City Manager’s office had spoken with PFM, the City’s financial advisor, and PFM “indicated that this is a debt management item for GRU, and at this time, there is no fiscal impact to General Government.”
Commissioner Bryan Eastman said he had made the motion at the previous meeting to delay the vote on the resolution, “and that was based mostly on… I had some real concerns about the miscellaneous provisions…, things that I thought may delegate more authority than I was comfortable with–or really just wanted to wrap my head around what exactly these things would do as we’re creating this sort of new structure, as we have these two governments, these two governing bodies under the umbrella of the City of Gainesville. I think we’ve just got to be really careful about how we’re setting precedent… Small changes can have larger impacts down the road.”
Eastman said he still has “a lot of the same reservations that I had from before, but I just want to make it clear… for everyone that’s out there, for our bondholders, to anyone, that this Commission–one of our top priorities is trying to make sure that this will work. We opposed the transition to an appointed Gainesville Regional Utilities Authority, but we all took an oath to the Charter of the City of Gainesville, and we will do what we can, particularly as it relates to our bonds and making sure that our bondholders are paid off.”
Eastman made a motion to adopt the resolution, and Commissioner Reina Saco seconded it.
During public comment, Jim Konish spoke about the language in the statute and his interpretation of the roles of the City Commission and City Attorney regarding GRU matters. He concluded, “The utility is owned by the citizens, custody has been transferred to the Authority, and you need to stop trying to interfere with the refinancing of the debt this body has run up since [Former Mayor Pegeen] Hanrahan sat up there.”
Mayor Harvey Ward said, “I would point out that the motion before us today is to do exactly what the GRU Authority has requested.”
All four commissioners voted in favor of the resolution, with Commissioners Cynthia Chestnut, Desmon Duncan-Walker, and Casey Willits absent.
After Ward checked that nobody wanted to speak during the Member Comment agenda item, the meeting was adjourned.
If the City Commissioners can’t be bothered to attend a City Commission meeting then each one that is absent should refund a portion of their salary to the neighbors they serve.
Of course they did…they don’t run the show. The creditors do.
And if anyone is confused as to where the city actually stands on this subject I think Eastman’s comment succinctly sums it up:…
“We opposed the transition to an appointed Gainesville Regional Utilities Authority, but we all took an oath to the Charter of the City of Gainesville, and we will do what we can, particularly as it relates to our bonds and making sure that our bondholders are paid off.”
Their allegiance lies not with citizens or voters, but with the financiers who own, on paper, the corporate entity that we call the City of Gainesville
(And I’m not against the resolution, I agree with it. I’m just calling the hypocrite politicians out.)
Eastman also stated, “Small changes can have larger impacts down the road.”
Someone must have woke his dumbarse. Most of the residents of Gainesville have known that for a long time and are suffering for those small incremental fiscally incompetent decisions that have compounded on a recurring basis by this commission as well as it’s predecessors.
Jim Konish did again,
At many public meetings including this one he revealed how elected mayors and their incumbent majority can vote for tax increases using other names. His “annoyances” have been easily dismissed by our city, their appointees, their managers and their media. Or perhaps there is danger in any deeper analysis.
Konish continues to shine an annoying light on massive city hall misspending that is increasingly conducted in the dark. Moreover, quiet city hall deals are in progress that will forever transfer the declining assets of working class residents to corporations by management uses lucrative, no-bid private contracts for that charge what they want for essential city services. And the public is paying for more and more lawsuits designed to keep the utility collecting city taxes by another name.
The city also engaged in an extended attempt to make it appear that their utility misadventure were supported by their appointed utility advisors. At a meeting of their utility advisory board, the members were presented with the problem of the enormous costs of utility debt to which the instant suggestion was just to raise rates. Raising rates was presented as the most appropriate way to keep up with the notoriously large transfer and expanding debt without any alternative from any of the appointees present. The few citizens that observed this dimwit deliberation became nauseated and left never to return.
Some think Konish does need to be stopped because he is making it harder to defend the city commissions votes, the manager’s palace, the lawsuits that keep fleecing ratepayers and the manager’s unaccountable spending. Konish just wont stop explaining how fiscal fantasies harm ratepayers, services payers and taxpayers (OMG that’s 3 ) using hard data to show how GRU became a financial weapon and how to fix it.
Lets keep him around.
A very important issue. Where were the 3 absent members?
Chestnut’s husband died recently…
She gets a pass.
Jennifer, your censors did it again. Merry Christmas to you and yours.
I didn’t find any comments from you in Spam or Trash.