Five new members of the Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) Authority board were sworn into their positions on Thursday. The new members’ first meeting came one week after Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed them. 

The GRU Authority first convened in October, 2023, but in March all four members submitted their resignations after a lawsuit challenging residency and public notice requirements. 

DeSantis’s new appointments include two members of the original authority: Craig Carter, a former Gainesville City Commissioner, and Eric Lawson, CEO of HCA Florida North Florida Hospital. 

The other new members include former GRU General Manager and mayoral candidate Ed Bielarski, Campus Scooters of Gainesville owner David Haslam, and Robert “Chip” Skinner, president of Gainesville Area Lacrosse Inc. 

The members unanimously elected Bielarski as chairman and Haslam as vice chair. 

Bielarski said he thought a time for chair’s comment should be added to the beginning of the agenda, and after the board approved a motion by Carter, Bielarski used the time for a presentation on GRU’s history with the city. 

Bielarski included points about how GRU has juggled massive debts and watched its earnings go down while the government services contribution (GSC) to the city of Gainesville grew, leaving GRU paying $68 million more than what it earned. He said GRU made the necessary cuts to its budget, cutting over 30 employees, but interest on the utility’s debt drove the shrinking margins. 

“[House Bill] 1645 didn’t come out of the governor’s office, it didn’t come out of [Rep. Chuck] Clemons’ office, without understanding this,” Bielarski said. “This is what got the authority here…. The lessons learned from this is, you’ve got to focus on the priorities of the average customer: low cost and reliable power.” 

Bielarski said GRU needs to base the general fund contribution to the city on earnings, not revenue, and that it must pursue expansions with outside resources such as Florida Municipal Power Agency, Florida Power & Light Company, and Duke Energy. 

Though the previous authority made several controversial decisions, including a change to net metering for solar last month, it repeatedly deadlocked on votes over the GSC. 

The city has prepared two budget scenarios to prepare for what the GRU Authority may decide to do regarding the general services contribution. 

The city also passed an ordinance earlier in the day, directing the city clerk to add a referendum to the November general election ballot, giving voters the opportunity to do away with both the authority and the position of GRU general manager. 

Attorney Kiersten Ballou briefed the authority board on the ballot initiative, and Carter, who was chair of the board’s previous iteration, asked for direction on who is the authority’s attorney if there is a legal dispute between the city and GRU, which is owned by the city. 

Lawson requested a risk analysis of how the referendum, if passed, would affect GRU’s rating, and what that would cost GRU and, ultimately, the public. 

“I think that needs to be put out into the public so that everyone understands that the bond and rating agencies are watching us, and they are looking for stability, and this would be the exact opposite of stability,” Lawson said. 

GRU CEO and General Manager Tony Cunningham said staff would address those topics and bring them back to the board. Bielarski said he would talk to the governor’s office about the authority having its own attorney. 

Cunningham also briefed the authority on a press release from Fitch Ratings. The credit rating agency gave GRU an “A+” rating with a “stable outlook,” but also listed strengths and weaknesses it had found in a review. 

On the positive side, Fitch said GRU has a strong service territory, a balanced generation portfolio, sufficient capacity in water and wastewater systems, and reasonable rates. 

Weaknesses include a significant amount of debt for the utility’s size, a new integrated resource plan that will need to fit with an existing capital improvement plan and debt reduction plan, and the instability of the shifts in GRU governance. 

Cunningham said Fitch identified the next 18 to 24 months as a key time period to demonstrate where the utility is headed, and Bielarski noted later in the meeting that there is no way the utility’s budget will reach Fitch’s goals on that timeline. 

Cunningham said that achievement is a goal and he believes there are ways to reach it. 

Public comment at the meeting was a mixed bag of citizens thanking the board members for their service, and others asking them to “do the least amount of harm” in their time on the authority. 

Gainesville City Commissioner Bryan Eastman sent an email to Mainstreet Daily News addressing Bielarski’s points made at the Authority meeting.  

“Tonight, the Chair of Ron DeSantis’ GRU Authority spouted the same misinformation that has been disproven time and time again, even by his own staff,” Eastman said. “Invented numbers, rewritten history, and completely fabricated stories. The sad fact is that Ron DeSantis’ handpicked chair has been a vocal and public advocate for selling GRU to Florida Power & Light since he lost his election for mayor. He has called selling our local utility to FP&L ‘the missing piece in saving the utility.’ Privatizing GRU will mean higher rates, thousands of lost jobs, and money sent to Wall Street instead of staying local. We can’t let that happen. We need to keep our local public utilities locally owned.” 
Editor’s note: The former general fund contribution (GFC) term was updated to reflect the government services contribution (GSC).