Tomorrow @ 5:30 PM
GRU Admin Building (301 SE 4th AVE)
The GRU Authority will once again target the Government Services Contribution (GSC) at their meeting tomorrow. And in what appears to be a purely vindictive move, they will also be targeting one of Gainesville’s most successful affordable housing programs. We really need you to come to the 5:30 PM meeting tomorrow to let them know the community opposes both ideas. Brief background information on both proposals is below.
NEW PROPOSAL TO ELIMINATE GSC: According to Wednesday’s agenda, James Coates will bring forward a proposal to halt all GSC payments until the Authority makes a final decision on the fate of the transfer. GSC funds would be held in escrow under his proposal. This is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to eliminate the GSC, which would trigger layoffs, financial crises at many of our local nonprofit organizations, and painful reductions in city services. The GSC was spared by a tied vote at the last meeting, and there is every reason to expect any future motion to resume GSC payments would similarly fail in the face of a tie.
Last time they considered eliminating the GSC, public outcry successfully persuaded them to table the discussion until after holding a joint meeting with the City Commission, which is scheduled for later this month. We can and we must use public pressure to beat back this assault on our community once again.
PROPOSAL TO ELIMINATE SUCCESSFUL AFFORDABLE HOUSING PROGRAM: In what is perhaps the most vindictive GRUA proposal to date, staff will be recommending that GRU stop collecting funds for the City’s ConnectFree program as part of a bundle of potential cuts to agreements and associations with the City. ConnectFree funds come from connection charges paid by new developments in unincorporated Alachua County. Without these funds, the City cannot continue operating the program, which provides financial assistance to low-income households to connect their water and wastewater to GRU’s systems. I cannot overstate the importance of this program, since its implementation in 2015, it has:
- Helped to build over 500 affordable homes for Gainesville residents
- Brought in nearly $100 million in outside state, federal, and private sector investment for affordable housing in Gainesville
- Built hundreds of units of affordable senior and veteran homes leveraging state and federal funds
- Returned roughly $150 in outside investment for every $1 funded into the program
This proposed elimination of ConnectFree via starving it of funds is mean-spirited and makes no fiscal sense. The financial impacts statement accompanying the proposal in the agenda backup makes this plain, reading “This will have no direct impact on GRU. It will remove the funding source of the GG [general government] ConnectFree program.” You read that right. They are proposing to starve the City of funds just for the fun of it.
Bullies will not stop until they are stood up to. Let’s show them that Gainesville residents will not be bullied!