A handful of residents spoke out Wednesday at the GRU Authority meeting against the proposed contract for General Manager Ed Bielarski, but in the end did little to slow its eventual unanimous approval.
Included in the contract, which was removed from Wednesday's consent agenda at the urging of residents, is a salary of $332,000 — a $23,000 increase over previous General Manager Tony Cunningham's salary of $309,000. Bielarski's new contract makes him the highest paid employee in city of Gainesville's history.
Eric Lawson, board chair and CEO of HCA Florida North Florida Hospital, said he looked at executive salaries from across the nation and then rolled Bielarski's previous salary forward by two years using an inflation factor of 3% to arrive at the current figure.
"The contract is within 3% of the median range for medium-sized utilities across the United States," Lawson said.
More:A week into the job, Bielarski fires two top GRU employees, eliminates sustainability office
Bielarski previously served as the general manager of GRU and was fired in 2022 by the Gainesville City Commission.
"Mr. Bielarski is a proven utilities expert. He proved himself when he was here before, he is a known figure ...," Lawson said.
Bielarski, who also served briefly as the chair of the GRU Authority, and three other authority members voted in June to fire Cunningham and place Bielarski in his seat.
Wednesday's contract approval by the authority essentially means that Bielarski, along with other members, appointed Bielarski without conducting a search or entering a competitive hiring process.
"The utility has been through a lot over the last several years. I believe that Mr. Bielarski would provide the most stable environment rather than going out for a national search," Lawson said.
More:Here are the 12 applicants that applied for the GRU Authority board
After the contract's approval, Bielarski spent much his time commending GRU's restoration efforts following widespread power outages caused by Hurricane Debby.
"We had 19 poles that were down —broken, shattered, trees falling down, pulling them down — crews working 16-hour shifts. We're built for this. And i'm just so proud of the folks that were out there restoring power ...," Bielarski said while also giving a nod to those who work on the water-wastewater side. "The community ought to be proud of the GRU symbol that is worn on each one of these shirts."
In addition to the salary raise, Bielarski, who recently took vacation for a couple weeks following only a month on the job, also will be given an immediate 104 hours of paid time off, meaning taxpayers will reimburse him for his pre-planned vacation prior to having a contract.
The contract allows Bielarski to accrue nearly 11 hours of PTO per pay period with a maximum of 560 hours that are able to be paid out should he resign or be terminated.
The contract includes a section that offers Bielarski 20 weeks of severance pay — around $128,000 — under circ*mstances that include but are not limited to, “the dissolution of the GRU Authority.”
That stipulation prompted several people during public comment to ask that the authority hold off on approving Bielarski's contract until after the November election.
"I think it is a good idea to table this until after the November vote on the referendum. It just seems kind of weird and out of standard practice to be rushing this through now and in the way that it's being done, I think it's a really, really bad look for the authority ... " said Susan Bottcher, a former Gainesville city commissioner.
The referendum Bottcher made reference to was passed in June by Gainesville city commissioners and will bring the GRU Authority board's existence to voters this fall.
The ballot measure will ask voters to decide whether or not to delete the article of the city’s charter that created the authority. The amendment to the city’s charter was made with the Florida Legislature's passing of HB-1645.
The authority on Wednesday night authorized Lawson to sign a letter to Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody requesting her opinion on the referendum and if a city charter amendment can overrule a "Special Act of the Legislature." It also asks if the board can hire independent legal counsel for all authority operations as opposed to using a city of Gainesville attorney.
"... the City Attorney and its office is an instrumentality of the City Commission and not an independent officer," the letter says.
