Gainesville city commissioners recently started talking about the possibility of intervening in Wood Resource Recovery’s lawsuit against the Gainesville Renewable Energy Center. This week, the city attorney clarified her prior comments regarding the intervention issue, which prompted a critical response from Mayor Ed Braddy.
City Attorney Nicolle Shalley sent an email to the commissioners last week explaining that her office already had met with Gainesville Regional Utilities staff to discuss the idea of intervening in the lawsuit. She wrote at the time that GRU’s new general manager, Edward Bielarski Jr., as well as GRU’s contract manager for the city’s power purchase agreement with GREC “were unable to articulate how the City has a direct and immediate interest in this dispute between GREC and WRR and how the City would be harmed by a money judgment that the court awards to either GREC or WRR.”
Bielarski then sent his response regarding the city attorney’s opinion to the commissioners, in which he respectfully disagreed that his position “failed to demonstrate a direct and immediate interest in the dispute.”
Shalley clarified some things about her July 8 email in a follow-up email to the commissioners on Tuesday.
“I hope that my email of July 8th did not leave any of you with the impression that the City could not intervene or that the City Attorney’s Office was discouraging intervention,” Shalley wrote. “My email was intended to further your understanding of the facts of the WRR/GREC dispute, highlight some of the PPA (power purchase agreement) provisions relative to fuel supply, provide an update on the staff discussion and analysis to-date, and help you understand that for an attorney to intervene in litigation on behalf of the City, he or she must: 1) state facts that explain the City’s interest in the dispute, 2) identify a harm that has been done to the City by the dispute or will be done to the City by the outcome of the dispute, and 3) ask the court for some relief (i.e., how does the City want the court to rule) that will alleviate or address the harm to the City.”
Shalley also said she has offered to have her office’s legal team meet with Bielarski and his staff “whenever additional thoughts are had in this regard” and that she looks forward to assisting the commissioners “in making an informed decision that this Office (or outside counsel) can pursue and defend in legal proceedings.”
In her email, Shalley told the commissioners, “Please keep in mind that your public discussions and correspondence regarding potential litigation are likely to be followed by the opposing parties and may be used against the City in this, or future, litigation.”
Braddy sent Shalley an email in response on Tuesday in which he quoted that line from Shalley’s email before writing, “I couldn’t agree with you more, Nicolle, which is why I grimaced when reading your July 8th email in which you wrote for public consumption that the new GM was “unable to articulate” a cause for intervention.”
“Not only was this phrasing tone-deaf (and could be seen as condescending), it was – more significantly – strategically obtuse,” Braddy continued. “I’m certain at least one of those potential “opposing parties” has passed around copies of your email and maybe even framed it on the wall.”
“Instead of creating an unfortunate perception that two charter officers are on opposite ends of a critical issue (and writing something that reads like a pleading by and for GREC), it seems all that was necessary was a memo to commissioners stating that the Court has a criteria to permit intervention and that your office is willing to work with the new GM to make sure that the criteria is met,” he wrote. “The GM stated it would be in the best interest of the utility to intervene. At this early/beginning stage, that is what we – the City Commission – needs to know. It is unrealistic to argue or imply that the GM must articulate the position in final form at this early/beginning stage. That is why, of course, we have an attorney’s office.”
The City Commission plans to revisit the GREC intervention issue during a meeting Monday at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall.