Alachua Voter Guide

What follows is a bit lengthy, and complicated, but, for those who comfortable with details and complexity, I believe it adds context to the latest attempt by GRU officials to threaten with arrest Gainesville citizens who dare to attempt to talk with GRU customers about the GRU-GREC biomass deal on GRU property:

For more than two and a half years GRU and the Gainesville City Commission have aided and abetted the private limited liability company GREC’s attempt to keep hidden from the public the important financial details of the GRU-GREC biomass deal – at more than $3 billion the most costly contract ever approved by the city commission.

Seven citizens of Gainesville, on April 6, finally succeeded in having previously secret details of the GRU-GREC contract made public, in settlement of public interest litigation that had been opposed by the Gainesville City Commission and GRU. As a result of the release of these details, many members of the public learned for the first time that the GRU-GREC contract did not contain a back out clause that commissioners had promised and that would have allowed the city to back out of the deal if GRU’s rosy financial predictions turned out to be wrong. Those rosy predictions have turned out to be very wrong.

On May 19, I appeared before the Gainesville City Commission and formally asked the commission to appoint an independent panel to review whether the GRU-GREC deal still made sense in light of GRU’s faulty predictions, and in light of substantially changed circumstances. My request came weeks before GREC filed its final notice to proceed, an event up to which GRU-GREC co-lead negotiator Ed Regan had previously implied to the commission that GRU could back out of the deal for about $2 million.

On May 19, each commissioner was also presented with my request in written form, along with a box to each commissioner containing hundreds of petitions from citizens pleading for commissioners to do their fiduciary duty and readdress the GRU-GREC deal before it was too late. GRU General Manager Robert Huzinger advised commissioners not to respond, suggesting that he would not touch the subject “with a ten foot pole.” The commission failed to respond to the request and to the citizen petitions, even to acknowledge that the request had been made.

At about the same time, in May, an engineer and citizen member of the Gainesville Energy Advisory Committee named Joe Wills was ordered by GRU-GREC co-lead negotiator John Stanton to cease his efforts to encourage communication between the City Commission and the public about the GRU-GREC deal. Wills subsequently resigned as a protest over these improper attempts to prevent GEAC from performing its legally mandated duty to serve as an information bridge between the commission and the public on matters related to energy policy.

From May through June Gainesville citizens appeared at every single regularly scheduled city commission meeting asking more and more questions about the GRU-GREC biomass deal. But not a single citizen question was answered, or even acknowledged to have been asked.

Finally, on June 30, 2011 GREC, finally issued its notice to proceed, a watershed date after which the cost of getting out of the GRU-GREC deal began to rise substantially.

On July 7, 2011 the city commission authorized the subject of biomass rate “impacts” to be referred to the city’s Regional Utilities Committee, composed of GRU-GREC-biomass-at-any-cost proponents Susan Bottcher, Craig Lowe and Thomas Hawkins. For months, Ms. Bottcher, chair of the committee, refused to hear citizen requests that the RUC actually hold a meeting on the biomass referral.

Finally, a group of citizens – frustrated at the city commission’s more than two year refusal to schedule a single meeting about the most costly private contract ever approved by the city commission – decided to organize their own community biomass forum. Thereafter, the RUC meeting was scheduled, and Commissioner Jeanna Mastrodicasa and former Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan, writing in The Gainesville Sun, attempted to discourage citizens from attending the citizens’ community biomass forum, and to get their information instead from what was to be presented at the RUC meeting.

On October 9, about 150 citizens attended the citizens community biomass forum, the first substantive discussion ever held about the costs and effects of the proposed GRU-GREC biomass plant. The only city commissioner to attend the forum was Commissioner Todd Chase, though every other commissioner and the Mayor had been invited to attend Neither Mr. Hunzinger nor any other invited GRU official to participate in the forum chose to do so.

On October 10, the RUC meeting on biomass rate impact was held. It was attended by about 60 citizens, many of whom had attended the citizens community biomass forum. They came armed with sufficient knowledge to ask important questions. Many of these questions were ignored by the RUC meeting’s emcee, GRU General Manager Hunzinger, who announced it was his intention to answer only those questions he deemed “pertinent.”

Following the RUC meeting, citizens demanded, without success, that Commissioner Bottcher allow a video that had been made of the RUC meeting to be posted on the city’s website so that citizens who were not able to attend the meeting could view the meeting on line. Commissioner Bottcher finally authorized the video to be posted on the city’s website. But weeks ago I wrote Ms. Bottcher and other commissioners requesting that the video be placed on the city’s where citizens could find it – specifically at the link to the link to the October 10 RUC meeting, below the tab labeled “video.” To date, my letter has not been responded to, and the link below tab labeled video continues to be grayed out with the notice that the video is “Not available.”

Citizens able to view the video of the RUC meeting would see and hear GRU’s general counsel step forward to claim on Mr. Hunzinger’s behalf that Mr. Hunzinger had spoken individually, in private, to every commissioner before the GRU-GREC contract was approved on May 7, 2009 and informed each commissioner that the “suggested” back-out clause had been removed. The back-out clause, it was asserted, was removed because GREC would not allow the clause. It was that every before the May 7, 2009 meeting at which the GRU-GREC contract was approved was aware that there was no back out clause in the contract (and thus no escape valve if GRU’s financial predictions turned out to be wrong).

About a week after the RUC meeting, concluded, citizens, as a result of a public records request, obtained a copy of a memo written by GREC that proved that – contrary to Mr. Hunzinger’s assertions –GREC had actually included a back out clause in the contract. This discrepancy has never been adequately explained.

Additionally, shortly thereafter, I was told about a recording of a city commission meeting held on December 17, 2009 that establishes that more than 7 months after the city commission approved the GRU-GREC contract commissioners appeared still unaware that GRU had removed the back out clause.

Now, GRU officials have called in the police to stop citizens from talking about “biomass” on GRU property.

Again, I do not believe the citizens of Gainesville will allow this to stand. The results of next month’s city election will be the test.

Yesterday Gainesville city police, at the behest of Gainesville Regional Utilities officials, warned three citizens that they would be arrested if they continued to stand on GRU property and talk with GRU customers about the coming GREC biomass-rate-hikes, and about opportunities for participating in the political process to seek redress the effects of the more-than-$3-billion GRU-GREC biomass deal.

These three citizens – Dallas E. Priest, Harold W. Saive and Deborah L. Martinez – and others, for more than a week, over their lunch hours, have been exercising their constitutionally-protected right of assembly.  But no assembly occurred today, because for more than 24 hours after GRU officials sent GPD officers to issue trespass warnings yesterday these citizens they still had not been given a written explanation of what they were prohibited from doing and saying on GRU property.

This afternoon these citizens finally were handed a copy of “Incident Investigation Report 02-11-025296” (a public record available to any citizen) that specifically explained to them why they were ordered off of GRU property, and what they must avoid talking about on GRU property to avoid arrest.

“David W. Thompson (GRU’s chief of security) wanted to trespass three (3) from the above location from their ongoing protest on the property, in reference to ‘Biomass,’” the report explained.

“Martinez, Saive and Priest were all advised that if they return to the property they will be subject to arrest.”

They are allowed to come on GRU property if “coming to pay a bill or a GRU related issue.”

The long and short of it is that these three citizens – whose average age is 68 – here in democratic Gainesville will be arrested if they protest “biomass” while setting foot on GRU property, which bears the slogan “A Utility Owned By The People It Serves.”

What happens now?

My understanding is that these three citizens, now advised as to the limits of their freedom, will return to GRU tomorrow and attempt exercise their peaceful right of assembly on the sidewalk by the street outside of GRU property, from which police have not yet banned them.  My understanding, also, is that others who still retain their right to talk about “biomass” on GRU property, may venture onto GRU soil to talk to GRU customers about “biomass” –  at least until more Gainessville police officers are dispatched to shut them down.

I do not believe the citizens of Gainesville will allow this to stand.

On Monday evening (December 5) at the African American Accountability Alliance’s 2012 City Commission Candidate Forum, our community witnessed the clearest signal yet that the crack in the information wall that has been obscuring the Gainesville City Commission’s GRU’s biomass electric rate hike scheme has spread beyond the point at which the GRU-GREC-biomass-deal-at-any-cost backroom dealmakers can hope to contain it.

Prior to Monday’s 4As forum, Armando Grundy, one of three candidates for the District 1 City Commission seat, had carefully towed the pro-GRU-GREC-biomass-rate-hike line espoused by his mentor and political sponsor, current District 1 City Commissioner Scherwin Henry, who has voted in favor of the GRU-GREC-biomass deal at every opportunity and who is among the biomass-rate-hike’s most ardent supporters.

At every previous forum, Mr. Grundy had refused to stray even an inch from his mentor and sponsor’s pro-GRU-GREC position
.
At previous forums, Mr. Grundy — as justification for his support for the GRU-GREC-biomass-rate-hike that will disproportionately hurt the residents of District 1 — has insisted that he understands the people of District 1. According to Mr. Grundy’s prior statements, the people of District 1 simply do not care about the biomass issue.

But at Monday night’s first District 1 forum, Mr. Grundy – faced with the undeniable fact that the citizens of District 1 have great common sense and overwhelming want to get out of the financially onerous GRU-GREC deal – Mr. Grundy finally, and definitively, stepped away from his mentor and sponsor Mr. Henry.

The abrupt change came after I pointed out, once again, that the GRU-GREC biomass plant has not been opposed by the other two District 1 candidates — not Mr. Grundy, a newcomer to District 1, who moved to District 1 after losing a previous election in which he attempted to become City Commissioner the city commissioner for District 3, and not Yvonne Hayes Hinson-Rawls, who lived in East Gainesville as a child and student and more recently retired to District 1 after a career in New York and Dade County. It was at that point that Mr. Grundy — facing a District 1 crowd with opinions distinctly different than those Mr. Grundy had represented to be their opinions – turned on his mentor and sponsor Mr. Henry.

As accurately reported in The Gainesville Sun:

“Washington also criticized his two opponents for not opposing the biomass plant, prompting Grundy to say he does indeed oppose it.”

It is too early to tell how Mr. Grundy’s split from Commissioner Henry on the biomass issue will play out in the final lap of the City Commission election season.

But it is clear that public outrage that has been boiling has continued to boil hotter ever since the April 6 unblackening of GRU-GREC financial details that the city commission had sanctioned being kept secret from the public until nearly 2050 continues to boil.

And it is clearthat pressure generated by that boiling has cracked the city commission’s carefully constructed two-and-a-half-year GRU-GREC biomass information wall of silence.

And it is clear, now that Mr. Grundy has abandoned his political sponsor and mentor on the biomass issue, that the crack has now spread to the point where there is nothing the GRU-GREC-biomass-deal-at-any-cost backroom dealmakers can do to stop the ill-conceived and irresponsibly negotiated biomass edifice from crumbling to the ground. When that will happen, and how, remain to be seen. I’ll keep you posted.

Last night, Armando Grundy got the endorsement of the African American Accountability Alliance. That means he got over 50% of the vote of the 4A’s membership after last night’s candidate forum. Following the 8 candidate race forum for the At-large 1 seat, no one got the needed votes for and endorsement, so none was given.

I will only use the video from the District 1 race because it was the best. That forum also had the most fireworks with Grundy provoking the most rebuttals. He criticized Ray Washington for not using facts and for being a “Johnny come lately” to the race, and inferred that Yvonne Hinson-Rawls was only using “buzz words” and didn’t really know anything.

In the At-large race, it was relatively peaceful. Richard Selwach, usually a flamboyant participant, stayed on message about creating a “vocational vortex” through teaching trades to east side students. Nathan Skop went after former commissioner Lauren Poe for “bragging about the biomass plant” but did not actually name him. But anyone watching could see Poe’s anger smoldering, but he never offered a rebuttal.

I will get video from the At-large race in future posts. In the meantime, I have more from District 1.

Ray Washington…you are the
Best district 1 candidate
Out there and I’m glad you’re running… I would
Vote for you if I lived
In district 1…thank
You for looking out for
The ratepayers and taxpayers.

Hi, This is Richard Selwach,
Candidate for Gainesville City Comm
At Large 1. My website is www.voteselwach.com
My priorities if elected are
To stop the biomass plant, clean city/safe city, government in the sunshine and fiscal responsibility…please visit my website for more info or to contact me.

Qualifying ended last Friday, and now the City Commission races are set for January 31. In the District 1 contest Ray Washington got in at the last minute. He joins Armando Grundy and Yvonne Hinson-Rawls in what could end up in a runoff. I look forward to all three candidates posting here and telling us why District 1 voters should pick him or her.

The At-large race saw Harold Save get out and serial candidate Richard Selwach and newcomer Mark Venzke get in. This is Selwach’s 6th attempt at a city seat. The rest are: Dejeon Cain, James Ingle, Donna Lutz, Darlene Pifalo, Lauren Poe and Nathan Skop.

Right now I am sending out the invitations to each one of these candidates to log in and tell us about themselves. Last January, this site saw 16,000 visits and over 37,000 pageviews. We hope they are willing to avail themselves of so great an audience!

People in the City of Gainesville will be voting on city commissioners about the same time they are caving in on their New Years’ Resolutions. Due to the accelerated pace of the Presidential Primaries, and its effect on our city elections, we will be choosing an At-large City Commissioner and a District 1 City Commissioner on January 31.

Well, realistically, the District 1 race will likely be settled, since there are only two candidates so far. But the At-large race has seven challengers for the open seat, which means that an actual victory will most likely occur during the February 28th runoff. Although the January 31 election will be well attended because it will coincide with a hotly contested Republican Presidential Primary, the runoff will be the typical step-child of elections that garners a 14% turnout if we are lucky.

Speaking of accelerated schedules, qualifying for candidates will be closed on November 18 at noon. At that time, they will either all have their fees in and paperwork done, or one or two will decide to bail out and help one of the others. It will be just 6 days before Thanksgiving, people will be consumed by the holiday season and football, and it will be hell to raise money for a campaign.

Of course, looking on the bright side, maybe everyone is too broke to celebrate the holidays, and they will actually start looking at local issues, and care about their city government. Perhaps they will insist on some belt-tightening and tax relief. But they will have to insist on it. They will have to CARE, and look critically at City Hall, and elect REFORMERS. Enough of the party of the status quo: the bus-buying, tree-burning, rate raising, road-narrowing planner class. They will have to show up on Election Day, KNOW what they are doing, and VOTE for new blood. If they don’t, the planner class and the other spendthrift geniuses who are just greasy little cogs in the overfed government machine, will coast to victory with one of those 10-12% turnout Apathy Festivals we call elections around here.

Good luck, Gainesville.

It is not too late to get involved in the Biomass fight. Check out this letter former Mayor Tom Bussing wrote for recent publication in the Sun…

Commissioner Mastrodicasa’s essay in the Sun demonstrates that
she is keeping herself completely out of touch on the BioMess Scandal.

She just doesn’t get it.   She still thinks everyone is in love with this
impending disaster.

We sure hope she’s wrong.  Now is the time to step up and let her know.
[email: mastrodij@cityofgainesville.org ].

Mastrodicasa, like all of the other city commissioners, disregards the
massive pollution that will impact vulnerable populations, and that the
diesel fume from 100,000 truck trips is bad for people.

So critical discussion must center on other troubling aspects of the project.

Fair enough.  Let’s get right to the facts.

First, the usual tired claim that 35 meetings have “aired out” this project
is simply a lie.

In truth, those meetings were a lead-in for the Commissioners’ first choice,
a giant new coal plant that we did not need.

At the last minute, they instead decided to give us a BioMess that we do
not need.  It went downhill from there.

• Against overwhelming public opposition , the Commissioners voted for
  the BioMess.
• A motion to have a Back-Out Clause was passed by the Commission, then
  ignored and deleted in back-room negotiations.
• The Contract for BioMess was secretly extended from 20 years to 30 years,
  with a few billion more dollars of Ratepayer money handed over to the Project.
• The Contract was made largely secret to prevent public inspection of the terms.
• The City gave away many millions of dollars of pollution credits, for free, to the
  private project – so they could more easily get their air pollution permits.

These are the Legal Facts:

• The Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) punted on the financial aspects,
  (referring the issue back to Mastrodicasa and the other City Commissioners. )
• Citizen Interveners at the PSC were not allowed to address the financial shenanigans.
• Same in the Site Certification Hearings.

When Mastrodicasa speaks of blanket approvals from all of these proceedings, she
ignores the fact that the Authorities (bureaucratically) declined to look into the finances.

Now citizen litigants have pried the cover off of the Secret Contract.

We have new information to share with the public, information that the Commissioners
wouldn’t share.

We are starting to expose the financial facts, for the first time.

We are bringing this HOME to the City Commission
(as the Florida PSC suggested ).

You can help.

• Come to the Forum at 3 pm this Sunday, Oct. 9,
  at the Grace Presbyterian Church, 3146 NW 13th St.
• Attend the Utilities Committee meeting on Monday,
  Oct. 10, 4 pm at GRU’s Headquarters on 4th Ave SW.

Let your voice be heard.

Too big to ignore

This blog has always been committed to local candidates and letting them get their message out for free. I have kept this space free of Senatorial and Gubernatorial and Presidential candidates because I felt like they got plenty of coverage already. But after going through two of my own campaigns in the last two years, I have had to come to terms with the fact that local politicians are a big part of our national problems because they promise to get grants for us so our buses will be “free”. This was particularly highlighted when newly elected Governor Rick Scott turned down “free” Obama stimulus money to build a bullet train because he said we could not afford to run it.

Indeed, government spending and government debt issues are quite divisive. Many Americans are concerned while others think we can ignore it and just keep printing the money. That is pretty much the divide, whether you understand it or not.

We have all lived with government debt all of our lives. Politicians keep telling us it is manageable and that it is like any one of our credit cards. And that’s a great way to make the sale, because most Americans are deep in debt and feel uneasy and hypocritical about demanding that the government be more responsible than they are themselves. So, when the light begins to dawn, and you realize how dangerously high the debt has become, and you dare to SAY SOMETHING ABOUT IT, you get called a lot of nasty names by your neighbors and coworkers. They will avoid the real issue at all costs by calling you a racist, a hater, a homophobe, an imbecile and an inbred redneck. Then, if you organize and begin to protest, you will be called a TERRORIST, and a threat to all that is good and holy.

So, if you care about the growth of government and government spending, you had better pay attention to your local elections. And the first one will be the Gainesville City elections in January. Yes, it should coincide with the primary date, which means more people will be showing up at the polls than usual. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, city elections usually garner a whopping 12% turnout; sometimes more, sometimes less. But, due to the Republican Presidential Primary, there should be a LOT more Republicans voting than usual, and some of those people (certainly not all) will be avidly looking to punish big spenders. Unfortunately, there will be no incumbents to fire, so voters will have to actually do some homework. I hope you will continue to follow this blog as that time draws near.