Konish: Plaintiffs against HB1645 also sued to prevent 2018 referendum
Letter to the editor
Updated at 3 p.m. on July 12 after Jim Konish retracted his statements about Mr. Arline.
The same core group of partisan citizens is following the exact same game plan previously deployed against the vanilla GRU Governance Bill that was introduced by Sen. Keith Perry and rejected by the voters in 2018.
Again, the City of Gainesville is being sued by cronies of the City Commissioners as a “nominal” Defendant. The City will likely spend GRU ratepayer money ($250,000 is already approved to fight the bill) to collude with the Plaintiffs under the guise of claiming they are trying to “understand” HB1645. I predict that counsel for the State of Florida will represent our Governor well. Our City Attorney in fact understands HB 1645 but remains silent.
After the legislature passed the 2017 Perry bill mandating a referendum to determine if a far less harsh City Commission-appointed governance structure for GRU would be added to the City Charter, Susan Bottcher and Joe Little assembled fellow staunch Democrats to sue Supervisor of Elections Kim Barton and added the City of Gainesville as a “nominal” Defendant. They sought to prevent the referendum of City electors that Perry had envisioned. This suit was filed belatedly in 2018, and Thomas Hawkins was the lead Plaintiff; now-Representative Yvonne Hinson was the third Plaintiff. The State of Florida was not served, and they did not intervene.
A fellow citizen intervened and paid Scott Walker and Patrice Boyes to vigorously oppose this Democrat-only citizen suit that sought to prohibit the referendum by City of Gainesville voters on the relatively benign Perry bill. I intervened myself, deferred to the esteemed and expensive legal work paid for by my fellow Intervenor, and provided any assistance I could.
In the 2018 litigation, the City utilized an in-house litigation attorney who merely demurred to the Plaintiffs’ suit and offered up no real defense. After all, the City had paid its lobbyist to kill Perry’s bill, and a massive disinformation campaign was mounted, funded by the City’s lobbyist. Being named as a “nominal” Defendant in effect forced the City to intervene. After all, the City could have initiated a suit itself.
In the current lawsuit to HB1645, the similarly-aligned Plaintiffs are taking on our Governor and seeking a referendum that they previously opposed. They are doing what the City Commissioners are afraid to do themselves for fear of removal by the Governor. The City will use Akerman to again demur. After all, they again hired a lobbyist to kill Clemons’ much harsher bill.
There are some important differences now. Seeing no hope in the State Courts, the same core group of Plaintiffs have gone to Federal Court instead. In addition, they are now suing some necessary State of Florida parties.
The comical aspect of this latest suit is the First Amendment component. There seems to be confusion over speech and the governance of a Florida municipal utility. A utility with exorbitant electric rates, staggering debt, and dirty, uneconomic electric generating plants that is also currently undergoing State audit must be overseen by the State’s governmental apparatus. Anything else would be a ridiculous result that would necessarily be erroneous.
The mandate to reorganize the governance of GRU to reflect the prevailing municipal utility governance structure utilized throughout Florida is not speech. The mandate to operate our GRU like the business it actually is, and to be guided by pecuniary interests instead of political messaging, likewise is not speech. Rather, these policies are legislative prerogatives. Plausible State claims are being made in a Federal Court instead of in State Court. Procedural challenges to legislative matters are made, but neither legislative body is joined.
It will be difficult for the City to funnel money to their cronies to fund this sad legal expedition to nowhere. However, Akerman will be paid by the City to help the Plaintiffs and will most likely represent the City.
When the judge refuses to issue a preliminary injunction, the initial reported $50,000 in private funds will be gone, and many times more than that will be required to fund protracted litigation that will take years to resolve. The private Plaintiffs will have to bear this expense and could face claims for the State of Florida’s attorney’s fees as well. The State of Florida’s resources are infinite as compared to the Plaintiffs. The Plaintiff’s challenge is a facial constitutional challenge.
To prevail, the Plaintiffs must demonstrate that there is no way that the presumptively constitutional HB1645 can be implemented constitutionally. That is an extremely high bar for such a complex, sweeping, and unprecedented municipal charter amendment compelled by HB1645. If the Governor can remove City Commissioners, he certainly has the power to appoint replacement municipal utility governors.
The uncertainty that our Mayor and Commissioners complain of is being created by these same officials’ indefensible antics and open waste, all joined by private citizens who operate as proxies for their political cronies.
Meanwhile, the City is bound to fully cooperate with all mandates of HB1645 and be prepared to render GRU completely “free from the direction and control” of the Gainesville City Commission by October 1, 2023. It will be interesting to see who intervenes, and on which side.
Jim Konish, Gainesville
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.
I read the complaint and saw valid causes of action pursuant to the Constitution and the U.S. code. There was nothing frivolous in the complaint. I believe they will prevail in the district court but will probably lose if appealed to the circuit court because it is dominated by republican judges who don’t follow the law but their right wing politics instead.
George, the ONLY cause that would apply to the Constitution is the ridiculous claim regarding Freedom of Speech, which is not imperiled and does not apply. Out of curiosity, why do YOU support high electric rates, theft of GRU customer money and out of control spending by the inept and uneducated politicians, past and present?
The law takes away property rights from the citizens of Gainesville – who should be able to elect their leaders -and gives it to the Governor who has never won an election in the city. You can’t get much more unconstitutional than that.
Somebody bring you in from the field? You can’t do what you want with your property now. Landlords have to have their properties inspected. You can’t have certain animals on your property. You can’t water on certain days. You can’t use fertilizer during certain times of the year.
Wow! That’s property rights for owners isn’t it?
Keep braying!
Way off track and obviously aligned with radical DEC “past her prime” Botcher or are getting paid well to make an ignorant fight. You are directly causing the city and GRU to spend and spend, tax and spend is all you know. If the radical commission is so good at running things why in 12 years did we go from the lowest rate range in the state to the highest? Hinson has always been an embarrassment too, the whole silly radical side of DEC and Gainesville politics needs to go away, just move elsewhere! Go!
Nice summary and explanation of the discombobulated efforts, by both past and present commissions, to prevent the residents from having their voices heard.
One might conclude they’ve done nothing but “Botchered” things up during their tenures. With the cumulative IQs of those involved, what else should be expected?
I am a GRU customer and live in City boundaries and do NOT want the commissioners in control of GRU anymore. They are destroying the utility and the city.
The grumpy ole Dem plaintiffs only gained power in previous years due to 3% of residents electing them, that’s all. Purely undemocratic elitist oligarchy in a college town too, mad because Gillum lost. They wanted political job appointments in Tally, but DeSantis won. And he’s still winning.
It may be there are a few Gainesville residents (i.e. Gainesville Residents United, Inc.) who enjoy a strange fiscal S&M arrangement with present and past city commissions rather than consider governance absent the pain of the many being the cost of pleasuring the few.
It appears local politicians have lost all meaningful connections with city and county residents they represent by indulging a ‘partisan’ group to do what they failed to do; destroy GRU.
Carpetbaggers.
How does this loser keep getting headline letters to the Chronicle? He doesn’t speak for Gainesville voters, who have rejected him at the polls – and it wasn’t close.
What is a “headline letter”? All letters on Alachua Chronicle are posted individually.
Also, although we occasionally delay letters for various reasons, we publish almost every local letter that is submitted to us, and if a letter is declined, we provide a reason to the author.
Think he means his letter is a headline, in and of itself, maybe.
Thanks for your explanation, Ms Cabrera. I didn’t understand your policy. As I have noted several times, I appreciate your fair reporting of local events, and allowing unedited comments by all.
Azz Hat is back in action, did he not come back with his meds? Seems rather irritable. But Losers are like that.
You’re really having a difficult time with this aren’t you? He may not speak for all Gainesville voters but he does echo the sentiments of many and as you so eloquently presented it, the “losers” you declare fealty to do not represent all the voters in Gainesville either. You of all people should realize that.
By the way, close only counts in horseshoes and nuclear weapons.