Gainesville in May: GRU Authority, RTS, and NE 9th
In May we should have a new Authority, language for a ballot referendum, and a new design for NE 9th. Here's what the City will be working on this month.
It’s been a year since I launched this Substack newsletter as a way to talk about what the City is working on, why we’re doing what we’re doing, and a bit of history for how we got to where we are.
It’s been a labor of love that was made primarily for me to have an excuse to dig deeper into city policy, and for the relatively niche audience of people who would care to read the 3,000-word screeds that come from that. So I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how many people tell me they’re regular readers of this thing. If you have a friend you think would enjoy it please share the newsletter, and if you’re not a subscriber consider subscribing so it gets in your mailbox.
Thank you to everyone who reads, subscribes, and has shared the newsletter. I hope it’s helped you learn a little more about the City.
First, Some Good News
The Lynx bookstore opened in the South Main Station building. Founded by District 4’s own writer extraordinaire Lauren Groff, who last week was also named one of Time Magazine’s most influential people of the year.
The Gainesville Airport is on track to break its passenger record, with 134,988 passengers flying GNV this year.
A new lead agency was selected as the Continuum of Care to oversee homelessness funding in our area. They’re called “Taskforce Fore Ending Homelessness” and without them coming in we could have lost millions in federal grants for homelessness services, so I’m glad we have them on board!
Forbes named the University of Florida as one of the US’s “New Ivies”. I’m not really sure of their methodology, the article is light on data and heavy on culture war anecdotes, but it’s nice to get recognition for our hometown University.
The Hippodrome announced its lineup for its 52nd season. The Ox has raised $15,000 to reopen, so thanks to all who donated.
GRU Authority Board Member Appointments
Two big changes will be coming to GRU in May, one from the Governor and one from the Gainesville City Commission.
In mid-May the Governor is set to select a new, five-person board to oversee Gainesville Regional Utilities. The previous board all resigned last month en masse after a judge told them he was planning to rule against them being legally constituted. Instead of letting that happen they resigned, which may have been for the best.
For some background: HB 1645, the GRU Takeover bill, clearly stated that 4/5 of the members needed to live within the limits of the City of Gainesville, but the Governor ignored that and only appointed one city resident. Chuck Clemons and others doubled down on this and made some weird arguments about how the Governor didn’t really need to follow the law, but a judge disagreed. This was thanks to a lawsuit by Gainesville Residents United, a group led by former County Commissioner Hutch Hutchinson and other community members.
It’s a strange end to a strange board. Almost immediately upon being appointed the Gainesville Sun reported that a majority did not live in the City, in direct contradiction to the law. In response one board member, Tara Ezzell, resigned immediately since she didn’t even receive GRU electricity. Shortly thereafter another member threatened to resign because a vote didn’t go his way.
The Authority was created to have “diverse” “experts” overseeing the utility, but instead the Authority consisted of all white Republicans with no utility experience.
And some of the experience was questionable. One board member had previously run an oil company that was found guilty of mass polluting the Gulf of Mexico. His company was found by the Department of Justice of polluting the Gulf of Mexico with oil “discharges” and hiding it from regulators through a toxic “mask” chemical distributed by a complex system of pipes to disburse the oil. The company, ATP Oil & Gas, was fined $41 million by the DOJ and subsequently went bankrupt.
Another member was a business owner who also worked as a professional magician with a series of DVD’s to teach people how to perform magic tricks. My personal favorite was “Magic Tricks Fore Golfers” which was filmed at the City’s own Ironwood Golf Course. You can still buy the DVD on Amazon if you’re interested.
All this aside, the Authority board could have been worse, for sure, but they caused some issues. They suddenly and drastically reduced payments for services to the city, rolled back preferences for small & veteran-owned businesses, and greatly reduced payments for rooftop solar homeowners.
But they also avoided some of the worst instincts of the right-wing activists that got them there. They were evenly split on totally gutting their payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (GSC) funds to the City, which would have been devastating to our city budgets. They didn’t clear out the leadership of GRU, as Chuck Clemons and others were calling on them to do.
The former chair, Craig Carter, has said he will not be reapplying. So what comes next? Will the governor select right-wing activists? Qualified people? Will he even appoint in May, or will he just sit on it until after the election?
Only time will tell, and things are going to be even more complicated in the meantime…
GRU Authority Ballot Referendum
Whoever Gov. DeSantis appointed to serve on this board may be all moot in six months anyway, as the City Commission is putting a complete elimination of the GRU Authority on the ballot November 5, 2024.
As I wrote in last month’s article, the City Commission has the authority to alter our Charter as per Florida Statutes 166.031, and that’s what we’re doing. By unanimous approval last month we approved this language to show up on your November 5th ballot:
Local Public Utilities
Shall the Charter of the City of Gainesvile 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 Government Services Contribution and operational directives, as proposed by ordinance No. ______?
If this happens the GRU Authority will be dissolved as soon as the vote is certified and Gainesville Regional Utilities will be placed back under the City Commission, albeit in a slightly different format than before. Before the GRU General Manager reported directly to the City Commission, now they’ll report to the City Manager. This is the structure most common in other municipal utilities, such as Tallahassee, Newberry, and Ocala, and is a much better governance design going forward.
This referendum is going to be alongside a stacked election ballot in November. This will be the last item on your ballot, but right above it will be the right to abortion, legalized recreational marijuana, the US Senate race, and the president of the United States. There will be two votes needed for this with a super majority vote, which is scheduled for May 16th and May 23rd.
Streets Stations & Strong Foundations
Over $87 million is projected to be spent from the infrastructure portion half-cent of Wild Spaces & Public Place, in what the City is calling “Streets, Stations, and Strong Foundations”.
This pot of money is a special tax approved by voters in 2022 specific for transportation, fire facilities, and affordable housing, while the other half-cent is for parks, recreation, and green space.
Last week the Commission approved roughly the allocations included below.
As I mentioned in my last April article, we have a huge backlog of facilities needs thanks to a 1960’s building boom in the city. Now these buildings, particularly public safety buildings that run 24/7, are aging and in disrepair. That’s led to prioritizing the five projects below:
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On May 23rd staff is planning to dive into the other 18.7% of the funds: affordable housing and road improvements.
The City Commission set aside 10% of our money for affordable housing, just under $9 million. This is a somewhat difficult bucket of money to spend from, thanks to Florida statutes that disallow us from using it to actually build affordable or give it to outside entities.
On road improvements, we are repaving N Main Street (which is already done) and NE 9th. NE 9th needs a repaving, so when that happens it’s a good time to consider a redesign. It’s currently a very wide, fast street with nearly empty on-street parking and small bike lanes, all leading to a large middle school, Howard Bishop. It’s unsafe and poorly designed, so staff is bringing forward some options. Here are the three options staff is having us consider:
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These are the status quo of 4 ft bike lane, a protected bike lane on both sides, or a two-way cycle track.
Having a protected bike lane on this stretch makes a lot of sense and follows our new guidelines using NACTO’s bicycle standards. While other cities have expanded their protected bike infrastructure during the pandemic, Gainesville has mostly stalled on this front, so it’ll be a good win for us on a road that needs safer routes.
RTS-City Negotiations
A solution has been found between RTS and the City of Gainesville, at least for the time being. With the current contract set to run out in two months, on June 30th, the University has agreed to fully fund its current service for the rest of the year, with a new contract to be negotiated on January 1st, 2025.
I’m glad the University is giving this more time and not doing any step down in funding in the meantime. That will give us all the opportunity to really understand what UF is looking for in its future transit system and how we can move forward with that.
There was a tremendous outpouring of support for RTS that helped to lead to this. The University of Florida Student Senate and the Santa Fe College Student Senate passed resolutions calling for UF to fully fund RTS service. There were protests outside of Tigert Hall last Friday, and some students even made these cute buttons and handed them out on the Plaza.
For everyone that spoke in favor of a fully funded RTS, thank you.
This agreement isn’t a long-term solution, but it gives both sides the time to find that long-term solution and is probably the best outcome we could have hoped for. Great work to City Manager Cynthia Curry and Vice President Dave Kratzer for getting it done.
Local Business of the Month
Since 1975 FreeRide Surf and Skateshop has been serving Gainesville with all things skateboarding and surfing. They were the suppliers and supporters of skateboard culture as it was growing in the 1970’s and 1980’s, even being the first to sponsor skateboard legend Rodney Mullen as he began his career in Gainesville.
The original owner retired in 2021 and gave the shop to Raina and Peter, longtime managers of the shop in its old location on NW 13th. Now they’re up on 13th and 16th in a smaller shop.
It’s been a rough go of it: right as they opened the new location the pandemic shut down retail businesses for a year, and as they were recovering Lloyd Clark’s burned down right next door, killing foot traffic in the shopping center and hurting their business.
So go in and support the business, they are awesome and could use the help. Peter and Raina are passionate about skateboarding and love to tell you everything you need to know to get started.
Local Music of the Month
Local indie artist “The Housing Crisis” released their new, synthesizer-heavy dreamy, indie single a few weeks ago, and it’s worth a listen.
The Housing Crisis is just a pseudonym for Dylan O’Brien, a music composition major at UF whose performed under “The Housing Crisis” since 2020. He calls the music “cosmic folk rock” and it has some strong Animal Collective late 2000’s indie rock vibes to it. That’s my generation of music, so it hits me in all the right places. Check out the single above and if you like it check out his full album, Astral Apartments.
Bryan Eastman is the City Commissioner for City Commission District 4 in Gainesville, Florida
Thanks, Bryan. I always read and appreciate your updates. I hope that for a future column, you'll talk in more detail about the new GRU governance model that citizens will be voting on this November. In particular, I'd like to hear how this new model will address critics' concerns that it will be a return to business as usual "mismanagement" by our Commission, how it will ensure that the voices of ratepayers who live outside of city limits are heard, and what it will mean for the future of GRU rates.
This is a wonderful gift to the community Bryan. Thanks for taking the time and effort to keep us informed.