Gainesville in September: Finalizing Budgets, Open Container, and GRU Lawsuits
What to expect from the Gainesville City Commission in September
It’s officially September! The students are back and Gainesville’s fiscal year is coming to a close. September is going to be dominated by the finalization of the budget, but we have a few other high-profile issues as well.
But before I get into that….
I’m going to be tabling at the Grove Street Farmers Market on September 11th 4-7 PM if you want to stop by and say hi. This is part of my attempt to find new ways to engage with residents and constituents aside from highly formalized government meetings. Come out, grab a local beer, buy some local produce, and meet your local City Commissioner.
First, some good news
We were lucky to have missed the worst of Hurricane Idalia, but even so, our staff worked incredibly well to prepare for the worst. Over a 24-hour period GRU crews got over 14,000 electric outages back up, staff distributed over 6,800 sandbags, GPD & GFR cleared roads of downed trees, and our communications team kept our community abreast of any and every change. Great work everyone, from the University to the County to the City.
In other news, the City put on a great gun violence prevention summit with over 400 attendees. The city will be moving forward on lowering water/wastewater connection fees for tiny homes below 850 sq. ft. The Alachua County Commission voted to fully fund Grace Marketplace after city budget cuts forced cuts there (Thanks guys!). The University is back in session, and with it the city is feeling more lively again with lots of events going on.
In other news, District 4 author and national book award finalist Lauren Groff is releasing her new book “The Vaster Wilds” at Superette on September 11th along with local book store Third House Books. It’s always good to have a new book from Gainesville’s resident fiction writer extraordinaire.
Finalizing the lawsuit over the GRU Authority
On October 4th Gov. Ron DeSantis is slated to take ownership of Gainesville Regional Utilities through his political appointees. In an unprecedented move, that the City believes is blatantly unconstitutional, a portion of our city government will be taken from the people without a referendum or proper notice and given to the Executive branch of the State of Florida. Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of Florida, and if this stands it will create a new precedent of what the state is capable of doing to a local city.
The stakes are very high, which is why the City of Gainesville is suing to stop this takeover and has filed a complaint on the many, many constitutional issues the bill has. I don’t need to get into them all, I’ve done that in more detail in previous articles.
In September we should have an answer on how this particular chapter ends. The City has requested, and the State of Florida agreed, to an expedited hearing to ensure we know whether the Authority will take office on October 4th or not.
Here is the timeline, subject to change:
September 15: The State of Florida answers our Complaint
September 20: The City Responds to the State’s Answers
September 22: Oral Argument before the Court
That means by the end of September we’ll (hopefully) have an answer. The state agreed to this expedited timeline because it’s in both of our interests.
One, legal ambiguity on a $2 billion utility is very bad. Our bond ratings agencies have already expressed concerns about the uncertainty this unprecedented takeover creates for the utility, and those issues have already cost our residents $2.9 million. By prolonging further uncertainty over who governs GRU we are risking further downgrades, staff departures, and legal issues.
Two, once a decision is made we can more readily decide what comes next. Senator Keith Perry has already said if it gets struck down they’ll just change it in the next session, the same way they’ve done to numerous other unconstitutional bills. State Republicans are committed to stealing our city government from us, through hell or high water. But it’s in our interest to move quickly as well. We need an answer so we can decide how best to govern with half of our city under Gubernatorial control, and to decide what other tools we have to bring local control back to our local residents.
However this turns out it will not be the end of the fight over Gainesville Regional Utilities, but at least we can close this very sad, partisan, and shameful chapter of our utility’s 100-year history.
Reinstating an open container ordinance
A 4-3 majority of the Commission is preparing to go back to making drinking a beer in public illegal. Since August 2021 Gainesville residents have been allowed to take their drinks off of their property and walk on the street with them. It’s since become pretty common to see around town: at concerts at Bo Diddley, walking around the neighborhood with a friend, at street festivals on SW 2nd.
But it was always controversial, as alcohol tends to be. Now it has bubbled up again, and last week a bare majority of commissioners voted to overturn the ordinance, reinstating a ban on open container everywhere in the city, except in a potential “entertainment district” in downtown Gainesville. The reason being a fear that it could lead to more gun violence if people are drinking near their cars.
Personally, I found the connection between outdoor drinking and gun violence speculative and with pretty flimsy evidence. North America is pretty unique in having laws that limit public consumption of alcohol in public places, which is common in Europe, South America, and Asia without any real issues, and is increasingly common here too.
And I’ve seen few issues in Gainesville either since this passed. It’s not uncommon to see people enjoying a beer around town or in your neighborhood, and many of the business owners really like the options it brings. Places like the Grove Street Farmers Market have been able to expand because you can walk with your beer to neighboring businesses, open container has kept shared spaces free from the arbitrary rules of alcohol licensure under state alcohol rules, and downtown business owners love it and have used it to great effect on our streeteary near Loosey’s and The Bull (see photo above).
People like it, businesses like it, and I’ve seen very few downsides. But I’m sympathetic to the fears people have of how this can be misused, so I’m open to a middle ground on this.
On September 14th staff is going to bring back two ordinances: one to completely eliminate public alcohol consumption in Gainesville and another to create an “Entertainment District” in downtown.
My hope is that we find a better middle ground - a policy to keep some open container - such as my counter-proposal to limit it to daytime drinking - along with open container in Grove Street and Downtown.
This is still very much up in the air, so if you have thoughts for or against send an email to the commissioners at citycomm@gainesvillefl.gov
Setting the final budget
Gainesville’s fiscal year starts October 1st, so months of hard work to set a budget are coming to a close this month. The City of Gainesville is about to complete the largest budget cutting in our city’s history. In total, over 125 jobs will be cut from the overall budget, $8.3 million in total budget cuts, or about 8% of the total budget.
This is all to satisfy a $19 million cut to the general funds transfer from the Gainesville Regional Utilities Authority. In February the state Joint Legislative Auditing Committee directed the city to make “bold moves” to cut GRU debt, they said they wanted the city to “feel pain”. To do that, we needed to “raise taxes” and “cut spending”.
So that is what is happening. You can see the long list of numbers below:
These cuts will be felt across the city, but the main impacts will be to Youth Services, Administration, and Parks & Recreation. In total, there aren’t many wholesale cuts, aside from Reichert House, but there’s broad cuts across nearly all of our departments and a lot of reshuffling. That means you won’t see as much wholesale ending of programs, but all programs will deliver a little less than they did in the past.
Our first responders, Police and Fire, are the only departments not getting cut, due a contractual increase in their salaries. That puts us back an additional $10 million we have to cut back in other areas to make up for that.
In total this has been a crushing, monumental task that our staff has done an incredible job with, and it is finally coming to a close.
Setting the new property tax rate
On top of the cuts we are also raising our property taxes from 5.5000 mills to 6.4297. It’s a very hard pill to swallow, raising .9297 mills in a single year is hard on everyone.
If anything is our saving grace it’s that our taxes are still below average compared to the other large cities, and there’s a chance we will be able to drop it back down in the future.
Despite Gainesville’s unwarranted reputation, historically we’ve had pretty low taxes. According to an annual report by the City of Port St. Lucie, Gainesville has the sixth lowest property taxes of the largest 22 cities in Florida. Now, at 6.4297 that will go up to just under the state average of 6.5635 mills.
The problem is that we live in the second-highest tax county and the fifth-highest tax school board district of those cities in Florida. That means you are paying the fourth highest taxes of any community in their study. Even with this tax increase we are still fourth, just a little under Miami Gardens, but it hurts all the same.
How much this will cost you:
If you want to know how much this increase will cost you you can check your TRIM notice or do this:
Go to the Alachua County Property Appraiser website and type in your address
Scroll to the bottom and find your “taxable value”
Plug that into a calculator, divide it by 1,000, and multiply it by .9297
For many this is a lot less money than they might think. For instance, for my home it is an increase of $42.59 per year, or $3.55 per month. That’s thanks to a standard $50,000 homestead deduction along with a 3% cap on increased valuations of homesteaded properties. For many homeowners this won’t be a huge impact, but it will be felt for commercial properties and rental properties.
My hope is that in the coming years we will be able to drop that back down to the 5.5000 mills it was before, once we have DeSantis’ GRU Authority pay it’s full fair share. An outside consultant pegged the taxable value of GRU at $26 million in 2021, $11 million more than what we’re collecting from GRU today. I’m calling this the “GRU subsidy” and once it goes away I hope to bring those taxes back down to where they were, but that’s not a possibility this year.
Some Local Highlights
District 4 Business
The Battery Store on 6th and 16th is now fully “Gainesville Electric Bike Garage”. Electric bikes are growing in popularity so much that the owner, Houston, has left battery sales behind and is fully committing to ebikes as his business. Stop by, Houston is passionate about e-bikes and getting more people on them and has a great stock of bikes. He will also convert your acoustic bike to an electric bike for $950.
More people should consider getting an ebike, it’s a game changer. I’ve been riding an ebike around town for about a year and a half now and absolutely love it. You get around just as quickly as driving, never worry about parking, traffic is a worry of the past, and you get a bit of light exercise and fresh air injected into your daily activities.
If you’re interested in trying one out swing by Gainesville Electric Bike Garage and ask for a test ride, you won’t regret it.
Local Music Highlight
Kyle Keller has been a staple of the Gainesville acoustic scene for a few years now, emceeing the Bull’s open mics every Monday and playing gigs around town. His new record, “The Great American Highway” is a great roots country record with a full backing band that calls back to those old 70’s country records of Tom T. Hall or John Prine. If you’re into that kind of music this is a local record worth checking out:
Thank you for the update! I’d like to point out that other countries with no open container restrictions also have more stringent gun laws.
I always appreciate your updates on our Gainesville government, Bryan. Plus, your thoughts and tips. Thank you! Patsy Murray