Gainesville City Commissioner Todd Chase has launched a webpage that will “be aimed at informing the public about the economic impact that the 30 year Power Purchase Agreement” the city signed in 2009 with what is now Gainesville Renewable Energy Center LLC.
Chase is calling his site, which was designed by Ozean Media, a firm owned by local GOP pollster and consultant Alex Patton, GREConomics.net. It isn’t up and running yet. Right now, there is only a place to enter your email address and an introductory statement:
Since taking office, Commissioner Todd Chase has consistently voiced his concern over the terms of the PPA as it relates to the assumptions that were made when analyzing the project.
In less than two years, customers of GRU will face an uncertain time of potentially significant rate increases due simply to the economic impact of the terms of the 30 year PPA signed in an environment of carbon legislation and increasing and unstable natural gas prices.
Not satisfied to sit back and hope things work out, it is our intention to educate the public on the situation we are facing.
This site will not be about climate change, Biomass, or renewable energy. Those issues are too complex and subjective to debate in a local governmental forum.
This site will be about addressing head on the challenge of managing our community’s financial future in a reasoned, well-informed, objective manner.
The general fund transfer (GFT) from GRU and utility tax revenue from GRU ratepayers combine to provide 45% of Gainesville’s entire general fund revenue.
If we do not address the current obligations of the 30 year PPA in a bold and aggressive manner immediately there will be a ripple effect in every aspect of our community.
The citizens of Gainesville, the ratepayers of GRU, and the employees of the city and GRU deserve leadership in seeking alternatives and solutions to help mitigate the pending rate impact.
Commissioner Todd Chase coined the term GRECONOMICS as a description of the realities of managing every aspect of city government through the prism of the 30 year PPA.
Last month, Chase emailed GRU General Manager Bob Hunzinger about a pro-biomass website, CleanEnergyGainesville.org, a project of the Dania Beach-based Florida Conservation Alliance Institute, and expressed his concern that it was “some special interest lobby not from Gainesville that has put this site together to push an agenda.” Chase wrote that he believed some of the information on that site is “simply fiction,” particularly a statement about the lack of a back-out clause in the contract.
