GRU oral arguments, Melrose festival, ticket winner
Hello from Gainesville, Florida. It's Monday, February 9, and you're listening to StreetSmart. I'm Lillian Hamman. StreetSmart is a weekly podcast from Mainstreet Daily News, where we cover local news that informs, engages, and inspires listeners like you.
Lillian:A big thank you to our sponsor, Forest Meadows Funeral Home, where compassion meets experience. You can visit their beautiful gardens and tribute center for cremations, funerals, and memorials, all in one trusted place. With exceptional care and personal attention, Forest Meadows is here to honor every life with care.
Lillian:Now, here's the top headlines we're rounding up.
Lillian:Alachua County endured a historic winter freeze last week. Gainesville saw its coldest February 1 ever at 20 degrees, and utility crews fixed numerous broken water pipes in Newberry and High Springs. UFIFAS is asking farmers to report losses and damages from the freeze.
Lillian:Law enforcement shut down I-seventy 5 last week near Micanopy and Williston Road to catch a suspect in a double homicide in Union County. Officials tracked the suspect's truck through cameras, and the chase ended with a pit maneuver.
Lillian:The University of Florida is investigating a potential measles outbreak on campus from two classrooms where exposure may have occurred. Two cases have already been reported in Alachua County and six across Northern Florida as the nation faces a spike in the disease.
Lillian:The city of Gainesville will break ground on two new fire stations this year. Fire Station nine, currently at Butler Plaza, will finally get a permanent home after using a temporary modular for the past seven years.
Lillian:As always, visit MainstreetDailyNews.com for more details on our stories. Thanks to our generous members, this news stays free for the whole community with no paywall. Thanks again for listening to StreetSmart this week.
Lillian:I'm Lillian Hamman.
Seth:And I'm Seth Johnson, here for our second episode of the Street Smart podcast. We're going to be disappointing some listeners.
Lillian:Only one person can win our tickets to the Crayola experience in Orlando.
Seth:But we thank all of you for tuning in to our inaugural episode last week, and we're hoping that you won't be too disappointed and you'll stick around. However, we are very excited to announce that Kathy Benton, a longtime Mainstreet member, actually, won the four tickets to the Crayola Experience. We contacted her and we'll be getting her those tickets very shortly.
Seth:But there's still an opportunity for you to win some tickets. We've got another four pack that we will be giving away in March. March seems like a good month to give those away. What do think?
Lillian:I'd say so with the St. Patrick's Day, maybe the luck of the Irish will strike you.
Seth:Some luck or just some dedicated listening, but those are gonna be some value tickets in March. Who cares about March Madness tickets when you've got the Crayola Experience here on StreetSmart?
Lillian:Absolutely.
Seth:Also, real quick off the top, I wanted to touch back on a story I did on last week's podcast. I had two people reach out in a really short time span asking me, did Brian Oliver get any of his 68 gold coins back? And if you are just now joining us on StreetSmart, can go back and listen to that story. But unfortunately, Brian did not get any of the gold back that he was scammed out of, all $200,000 worth. Didn't include that in the episode last week.
Seth:However, it is on the story online at MainstreetDailyNews.com along with other more details if you'd like to go and listen.
Lillian:If any of you ever has any comments or questions or anything for us after you listen to a StreetSmart episode or read one of our articles, feel free to reach out to us at editor@mainstreetdailynews.com. Now for our featured story of the week, we are going to be tapping deep into the reporting well of Seth Johnson.
Seth:I've been on this beat since it started, really, at least the most current iteration of it, and that is the Gainesville Regional Utilities and the new Gainesville Regional Utilities Authority that is now in control.
Lillian:Seth, how many GRU stories do you think you've had over the years?
Seth:If you were looking at just the GRU authority or this kind of debate over who gets to run the utilities, I think probably around 200, a little more. When we got to the eighteen month timeline after the GRU authority took over, I did a story that just recapped all my previous stories. And I think I was at 70 or 80 stories just within that timeline. And we're now getting to the three year mark of kind of this most current iteration of who gets to control GRU. That started in February 2023, after the conclusion of an audit by the state into the city of Gainesville, and then shortly thereafter, there's the bill to create the GRU Authority.
Seth:And I was up in Tallahassee when our local electric county legislative delegation discussed that bill and voted four to one to move it forward. So it's been several years now.
Lillian:What's the latest update on GRU?
Seth:Well, there's actually going to be an oral hearing tomorrow in Tallahassee. It's before the Florida First District Court of Appeal. We're just going to call that the First DCA to help me out. But GRU and the city are going to go up there with their attorneys, and they have about a fifteen minute oral hearing spot.
Seth:Now, there's going be nothing really new coming out of those arguments. It's really kind of repeating the past arguments that happened before the district court. However, it gives the judges a chance to kind of question the attorneys and hear from them.
Seth:Now, if you're just joining StreetSmart or getting into local news and you're not familiar with this three years we've talked about, the city of Gainesville used to control GRU, the local utility that covers all of the city of Gainesville, along with some outlying areas. However, three years ago, the Florida Legislature passed a bill that created the GRU Authority and gave them the power to control this utility, even though it is a municipally owned utility. And there's been kind of two sides that have formed debating whether or not this authority should have formed or if the power should stay with the city commission because that's a better vessel to control and to manage the utility.
Seth:And regardless on what side you lean towards on who should be in charge, kind of here's where things stand. There have been two referendums that the city of Gainesville has held that both passed overwhelmingly, saying that the voters want to remove the GRU Authority and return control to the city commission. However, both of those referendums are now held up in court. And this oral argument tomorrow is for the referendum that actually happened in 2024 at the November elections then, not the one that just happened last year. Now, the challenges to that referendum were first heard by the district court here in Alachua County, and the judge sided with both parties on some of the different counts. But he really primarily sided with the city because he said they do have the authority to change their charter and remove the GRU authority from power, even though that section was added by the Florida Legislature.
Seth:And that's really the key part of all of this. However, that same judge also ruled that the ballot language was confusing during that November 2024 referendum, and so that invalidates it. So neither sides were very happy with where it ended up or not completely satisfied anyway. So now the question is, where will the First DCA end up? Will they confirm the lower court ruling and say the ballot language was confusing, but the city does have the power?
Seth:Or will they say that the city of Gainesville can't touch that section of its charter that was implemented by the Florida legislature, and therefore they don't have the power to remove the GRU Authority? Or it could be some combination? We don't really know.
Lillian:Fifteen minutes is a pretty quick hearing before they make a decision.
Seth:Yeah, it's not a very long time for the lawyers to try and persuade them. However, a decision won't actually come tomorrow. So this is like the final small bullet point before another big subheading on this battle for GRU. The First DCA isn't required to give a ruling by any particular time. So it could be several weeks.
Seth:In fact, it likely will be several weeks going into months before they might hand down their ruling. So it's oral arguments tomorrow and then silence, and one day they're just gonna drop the ruling, and you'll be able to find it on mainstreetdailynews.com. To give some context, last year, Alachua County was before the First DCA for a case concerning their at large commission districts, and they had oral arguments in the summer, and I think it was about at least two months before that decision came down. And actually, I spoke down with Mayor Harvey Ward on Friday, and he touched on that exact point. Here's the mayor.
Mayor Ward:My guess is it'll be at least three or four weeks before we hear anything, and maybe longer. I mean, we are all this is not to the court, I think, probably the most important thing on their docket. For hundreds of people in Gainesville, maybe thousands of people in Gainesville, it's a big deal and we're all on the edge of our seat. But I try not to sit on the edge of the seat too much because there's so much other stuff that we do have control over and that we can impact.
Seth:So even though a decision won't come tomorrow, I will be covering the oral arguments, and we'll have a story up on mainstreetdailynews.com, just reiterating what happened there. And we'll see how many stories I end up writing on this in the coming months and years.
Lillian:We're gonna take a quick break to hear from our podcast sponsor, Forest Meadows, before we jump into the news forecast and events section for the week.
Sponsor:At Forest Meadows, our commitment is simple. Exceptional care, personal attention, and respect for every family we serve. Forest Meadows offers every option in one trusted place. Visit our beautiful gardens and glass front niches or plan ahead for cremation, funerals, and memorials at our funeral home or tribute center located on our cemetery grounds. Forest Meadows, where compassion meets experienced and every life is honored with care.
Seth:For the news forecast, we've got a big week of government meetings, starting with the cities of Archer, Alachua, and Newberry tonight. That Archer meeting will be a joint meeting with Alachua County. This will kick off an annual series of joint meetings that the county holds with municipalities.
Seth:Meanwhile, the Alachua City Commission will review polling place alternatives for the Hathcock Center, which it closed for the April.
Seth:On Tuesday evening, the Alachua County Commission will consider a temporary use permit for a proposed music festival in Melrose. The project has brought a lot of attention and disagreement to the quiet community. The residents are expected to pack the chamber to speak in favor and in opposition.
Lillian:Leading up to Valentine's Day over the weekend, LifeSouth is hosting the Share the Love Blood Drive today through Friday. Donors get a $25 gift card and can win an exclusive Valentine's Day package. You can participate from any of LifeSouth's locations.
Lillian:On Thursday, Alachua's Chick fil A will host a family date night featuring special ice cream sundaes. Also on Thursday, the Harn Museum of Art will stay open past 5PM for Art After Dark.
Lillian:Entry into Dudley Farm Historic State Park will be waived Friday through Monday. The park will host an old fashioned Valentine's event on Saturday, teaching kids Valentine's Day traditions with hands on crafts and activities.
Lillian:And it'll be opening weekend for the Florida Gators baseball team on Friday. The Gators will play a three day matchup against the University of Alabama Birmingham. Gators soft ball also opened its season this past weekend at the USF Rawlings Invitational.
Seth:It is hard to believe that baseball season is already here. I was walking past Santa Fe College a couple days ago and they had a baseball game going on. Was fun to watch as I was going past on the sidewalk there.
Seth:And we wanted to mention additional upcoming news on the sports side. Mike Rideout serves as Main Street's sports director, and he's been covering local prep sports for decades in North Central Florida. This week, Mike will have stories on the first round of the high school basketball state playoffs for both the girls and boys teams. If you're not already, sign up for his sports newsletter that comes out every Monday and Friday. We'll put a link in the show notes for you.
Lillian:And that's all we've got for this week's SmartSmart Podcast brought to you by Mainstreet Daily News and made possible by our generous members. We'll be back next week to round up more local news that matters to you. Remember to click on the link in the show notes to find more free local news at mainstreetdailynews.com, and make sure to share this podcast with a friend.
Lillian:Our theme music is Sunset Sonata by Gainesville's very own ska band, Now Leaving Space. This episode is a production of MARC Media.
