No contest: Gainesville, Alachua County easily pass 3 local referendums
Alachua County and Gainesville voters have spoken, but before anything changes, the courts will also need to speak on two referendums concerning Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) and the county's Board of County Commissioner (BOCC) district structure.
On both, voters spoke overwhelmingly.
Alachua County voters also approved the One Mill for School ballot question with 76% of the vote. The One Mill item will be implemented without issue.
Become A MemberMainstreet does not have a paywall, but pavement-pounding journalism is not free. Join your neighbors who make this vital work possible.
The local public utilities referendum asked if Gainesville voters wanted to eliminate Section 7 from the city's charter—thereby erasing the GRU Authority and returning management control of the utility to the City Commission.
The referendum passed with 72.6% of the vote—39,305 to 14,863 votes.
Mayor Harvey Ward said he expected the vote to pass but not by such a large margin. He called the victory a mandate by citizens to return the system to the previous structure.
"Our system is supposed to depend, in large measure, on giving the people a voice and listening to that voice," Ward said. "This is as big a mandate as I've seen on anything, and I would hope that that carries weight."
The GRU Authority filed a lawsuit in September to stop the ballot referendum, calling it illegal and saying the City Commission lacks the power to undo an act of the Florida Legislature—even through a voter referendum.
An Alachua County judge authorized a temporary injunction . This injunction will prevent the city of Gainesville from implementing the referendum until after the lawsuit is settled. The hearing is currently scheduled for December.
Concerning the lawsuit, Ward said the City Commission will need to discuss its next steps at a future meeting. If the GRU Authority lawsuit succeeds, then the voters will have spoken in the affirmative but without any change.
Ward said he's not sure what might happen if that's the case.
"For now, what's important is that the people have spoken very, very loudly, and the people own this thing, and they should have a voice," Ward said.
On the Alachua County district referendum, the BOCC placed a ballot question that asked if voters want to return to the at-large system. Voters said yes will 71.6% of the vote—90,886 to 36,024.
In 2022, the Florida Legislature placed a referendum on the local ballot asking if Alachua County wanted to switch to single-member districts. That referendum passed with 51.5% of the vote, but the BOCC, who opposed the change, said misinformation had skewed the election.
The BOCC voted to place the issue back on the ballot this year, but the commission races scheduled for 2024 continued under a single-member district system.
With the overwhelming vote on Tuesday, Alachua County is poised to switch back to at-large districts in 2026, but a lawsuit filed by local citizens will hamper that change.
In October, a judge ruled that the ballot language was illegal according to Florida Statutes. Alachua County plans to appeal the decision in order to enforce the result of the election.
Until the judiciary has its say, the referendums will hang in limbo.
On the state level, Florida voters approved two constitutional amendments and rejected four others. These constitutional amendments needed 60% of voters to pass.
