Well, GNV, nobody said it was gonna be easy.
The ink on yesterday’s special City election was hardly dry before the Great DeSanitizer-appointed puppet GRU Authority filed an “emergency” motion to prevent its dissolution.
This despite the oft-stated will to the contrary of the people who actually own GRU.
You know, the residents of the City of GNV.
Why an emergency?
“Because their legal team avoided requests to have decisions made earlier,” GNV Mayor Harvey Ward posted on Facebook. “I wish I was making this up.”
Of course puppet authority members have a long – and so far unsuccessful – track record of suing to save their phony baloney positions.
And to keep their handsomely paid utility manager from being fired, yet again, by the City.
And never mind that GRU’s owners have three times voted, by more than super-majority margins, to take their utility back from state seizure.
GRU Authority to GNV: We don’t give a rat’s patootie what you want.
Apparently the authority’s position is that city voters do not have the, um, authority, to overturn an act of the Legislature.
That contention seems flimsy on two counts.
First, because the Legislature seized GNV’s utility by the expediency of amending the language of GNV’s City Charter.
But the City Charter has always been subject to change by a vote of the people of GNV.
And one has to believe that if the Legislature didn’t want the people of GNV to undo what it did, it would have included language in its charter rewrite to keep that from happening.
Like a sentence that said…oh, I dunno…“This provision cannot be nullified by City referendum.”
The Legislature did not.
And here’s the other thing.
The people of GNV have voted on two previous occasions to undo what the Legislature did to their charter.
If lawmakers were going to take issue with that they had ample opportunity during their last regular session to pass another bill making the GRU Authority permanent.
Lawmakers did not.
The reason the utility hijacking occurred in the first place was because a powerful legislator was waging a personal vendetta against the City of GNV (and yes, I’m looking at you, Chuckles.)
But Chuckles was term-limited out. And his successor has not seen fit to take up his vendetta.
So who now gains now from keeping little GNV under the thumb of a puppet authority appointed by The Guv?
The Great DeSanitizer Himself, of course.
He hates GNV as much as Chuckles did. Because our little blue city remains an ugly blemish on his otherwise solid red Free State Of Floriduh.
The thing is, The Guv has had a falling out with a Legislature that used to indulge his every whim. Plus, he’s a lame duck, so his influence grows weaker by the hour.
The only thing The Guv has left to rub GNV’s nose in his disdain is the judiciary. And so his puppet authority is going to keep filing appeal after appeal until it runs out of judges.
Or until The Great DeSanitizer leaves office.
Whichever comes first.
But like I said, nobody claimed this was going to be easy.
Still, GNV is a stubborn Independent City.
And our independence is worth fighting for.
FreeGNV 