Ed Bielarski resigns from GRU Authority, begins work as GRU CEO/GM

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Less than a month after Governor Ron DeSantis appointed him to the GRU Authority, Ed Bielarski has officially resigned from the board and started work today as the Interim CEO of Gainesville Regional Utilities.

At last night’s GRU Authority meeting , the board voted 4-1 (with Eric Lawson in dissent) to approve a motion from Director Craig Carter to fire CEO/GM Tony Cunningham. Bielarski then abstained from a 4-0 vote to approve a motion from Carter that asked him to resign from the board and become Interim CEO/GM. Bielarski indicated that he would resign after the meeting and chaired the rest of the meeting.

Last night, Bielarski gave GRU Authority Clerk Christine Kunkel a handwritten note that simply said, “Effective with the end of the June 12th, 2024 meeting, I resign my position as chair and member of the GRU Authority.” Kunkel transmitted the resignation to Governor DeSantis at 12:54 p.m. today.

Bielarski was hired as the General Manager of GRU in 2015, and he was fired on January 27, 2022, at a Gainesville City Commission General Policy Committee meeting; Bielarski’s contract was not on the agenda, but now-Mayor Harvey Ward (who was then a Commissioner) asked to move member comment to the top of the agenda and made a motion to terminate Bielarski’s contract immediately.

In his motion to fire Bielarski, Ward cited a failure on “three big ventures” – a proposed partnership with FPL, a solar project that stalled due to protests from residents in the area , and UF’s Central Energy Project . In a Facebook post last night, Bielarski stated that he “had to end [negotiations with FPL] because the city wouldn’t reduce the GFT to fund the needed costs,” the contract for the solar project has “since fallen through and both parties are on pause,” and UF’s Central Energy Project “process fell apart and no one was chosen.”

Ward concluded his motion to fire Bielarski by saying, “It is completely acceptable to swing big, and I encourage it. But if we swing and miss, we can’t pretend we were never up to bat and quietly move on to the next game… I don’t expect the trend is going to turn around… Missing the [100% renewable energy by 2045] goal is unacceptable… Now is the time to build an operation where both sides of the house are working in the same direction, rather than competing for resources.”

The vote to terminate Bielarski was 4-2, with Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker and former Commissioner David Arreola in dissent. The seventh seat was vacant at the time due to Gail Johnson’s resignation in August 2021.

Bielarski started work today as Interim CEO of GRU and told Alachua Chronicle, “I am humbled by the opportunity to continue the mission I started in 2015.”

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