On Election Day, Gainesville residents had a choice to give Gainesville Regional Utilities power back to the Gainesville City Commission or leave it with the governor-appointed authority board. The referendum passed with 72%, with residents voting to give power back to the city.
Since Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed an authority board to control the GRU in June 2023 under House Bill 1645, Gainesville residents have been fighting to switch the utility’s power back to the city commission.
In May of 2024, the city commission approved an ordinance that would place a referendum on the ballot, leaving the choice of control up to its constituents.
“The people have spoken through our vote, and now we must act,” said Wes Wheeler, former chair and member of the City of Gainesville’s Utilities Advisory Board and funding board member of Gainesville Residents United Inc.
The referendum came after an outpouring of concern over the GRU Authority’s state-appointed leadership, largely because only one of the original five authority members lived in Gainesville. Despite challenges to its constitutionality by the GRU Authority, the referendum remained on the Nov. 5 ballot.
Gainesville Residents United, Inc. advocated against the law establishing the authority, hiring lawyers and filing lawsuits. While some lawsuits were dismissed, they ultimately led to the resignations of four of the five original board members. The new board was appointed in May.
Many citizens were upset by the appointment of the board members and would have preferred an election. Some believed the appointed members were not qualified enough to serve on the board.
Jason Fults was formerly on the city-run advisory board for GRU. Before the advisory board was disbanded and replaced by the GRU Authority, it was made up of an experienced group of people, including engineers and individuals with knowledge of utilities, Fults said.
“I don’t think that folks that aren’t in any way accountable to the community should be making decisions about the utility that’s owned by the community,” Fults said. “The people clearly have spoken on this issue and made their opinion known.”
Fults said that he was pleasantly surprised by the tremendous voter support for the GRU referendum.
Commissioner-elect James Ingle said voters should’ve had a say in the appointment of the GRU Authority.
“They could have allowed a vote by all GRU customers as part of the bill,” Ingle said. “But the will of the voters didn't line up with the ambitions of the guys pushing the bill, and a vote was the last thing they wanted.”
Bobby Mermer, campaign manager for the “Yes Local Public Utilities” campaign and coordinator of the Alachua County Labor Coalition, has worked closely with other organizations and the city commission to get the referendum on the ballot.
As for the future, Mermer said he hopes the GRU Authority accepts defeat.
“There’s a lot of us, those of us in Gainesville, who are not happy with the national election results, not happy with the state results, but we believe in democracy, and that means accepting when you’re defeated,” he said.
According to Alachua Chronicle, the GRU Authority filed a complaint against the city in September, asking the judge to void the referendum voted on by the city commission in June, prohibit the printing of the referendum on the ballot and stop the city from carrying out the referendum if it appears on the ballot.
The judge has issued a temporary injunction, which means the referendum will not be implemented until a ruling is made.
“We hope the authority will respect the will of the people as shown to this referendum and drop their lawsuit and move towards an orderly transition of power back to our locally elected officials,” Mermer said.
Angela Casteel, an Alachua County resident and administrator of the Facebook group Customers for a Better GRU, believes the city commission shouldn’t manage GRU.
Casteel said the city commission is not qualified to handle GRU and that the commission had mismanaged GRU budgeting in the past.
“They mismanage everything that they handle,” she said.
Casteel said the GRU Authority is doing the best it can while dealing with paying off its debts. She said the city commission is the reason the GRU has been in debt.
“There’s a great big snowball, and you have to chip away at it, right, that's exactly what the board is doing,” she said. “They are chipping away at it, but they’re chipping away quicker than anybody thought that they could.”
Gainesville resident Debbie Martinez is another GRU customer who is concerned about the referendum.
Like Casteel, Martinez believes that the city commission would not be effective in its budgeting for GRU and supports the GRU Authority. She said the authority is working on paying debt so that GRU customers have lower utility bills.
“The people serving on the utility advisory board are doing their best to try to help pay down this debt to lower the bill to where we don’t have more homeless people and more people having to decide whether or not they buy their medication or pay the GRU bill,” she said.
Martinez said she also supports the GRU Authority because she believes in having a separate governing board with no relation to the city commission.
“I have to remain hopeful,” she said. “I may not be alive when they get all of this [GRU debt] fixed, but at least we have an independent board.”
A ruling by a judge on who controls the GRU is expected to be made in January or February.
Contact Sofia Meyers at smeyers@alligator.org. Follow her on X @SofiaMeyer84496.
