NCFL Indivisible Actions—Mar 11, 2026
Volume 2, Issue 9
Welcome to NCFL Indivisible Actions. Every week, we cut through the noise to bring you what’s happening in North Central Florida—the decisions being made, the people being affected, and the actions that make a difference. This newsletter exists because you showed up. That’s how change works: one neighbor at a time, one action at a time.
Make a Call!
This bill goes to the floor of the FL House this week for a final vote. All the phone banking has slowed it down and could block the bill; please make your call! Say your name, street address, and zip code and urge them to Vote NO on HB 1471.
Call Script, thanks to NWL: Hi, xxxxxx, this is xxx, an activist with North Central Florida Indivisible—Gainesville chapter. Join us in protecting First Amendment rights. What FL grassroots groups are calling “the Outlawing Activism bill,” HB 1471, would let the state label people and groups they don’t like as “domestic terrorists.”
Please ask at least 2 friends to make these calls too!
https://www.flhouse.gov/FindYourReprestonightentative
NCFL Indivisibles—There is NO Meeting Tonight.
New Members Welcome—Climate and Environment Committee
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.
Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Climate and Environment. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.
Hi there,
You are invited to a Zoom meeting.
When: Mar 16, 2026 05:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/GKXAm1CORQGNzYW5QQTrIg
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
URGENT! Stop Starke Internment Camp!
The Bradford County Commission is considering inviting ICE to move in, mutating an abandoned industrial warehouse with severe contamination into a “detention center” for over 3,000 people.
We cannot allow this system of concentration warehouses to expand. We cannot allow American Citizens and Residents to be held hostage at gunpoint by our own militarized, deputized armed forces.
Not here. Not anywhere. Not now. Not ever.
Interested in a coalition with Bradford County residents to stop an ICE detention center?
We need your love, your anger and your outrage! Help us with research, writing, organizing, strategizing and protesting!
Sign Up To Fight A Starke Internment Camp!
Tallahassee Just Voted to Override 75% of Gainesville Voters on GRU. Call the Senate Now
We voted. Twice.
In 2024, 73% of Gainesville voters said, Give us back our utility. A judge tossed that result on a ballot-language technicality. So we voted again in 2025. Seventy-five percent said the same thing. Now the Florida House has decided none of that matters.
What’s Happening
On March 3, the House passed HB 1451 by a vote of 81-26. Tucked inside a utility reporting bill is a 24-word amendment that preempts to the state any regional utility authority created by the legislature after January 1, 2023.
One entity fits that description. Ours. The GRU Authority, five members appointed by Governor DeSantis in 2023 to take control of Gainesville Regional Utilities away from the city.
If this becomes law, no future local vote can undo it. Only Tallahassee could.
Rep. Yvonne Hayes Hinson (D-Gainesville) told the House floor: “As written, it applies to only one community at the moment: mine. And it would nullify two certified election results, 73% in 2024 and 75% in 2025.” Her amendment to strip the preemption language was voted down.
Mayor Harvey Ward called it a “cloak and dagger approach,” with the language dropped into committee with no notice and no public discussion.
Why It Matters Here
This isn’t about rate debates. It’s about whether we get to decide who runs our utility.
The GRU Authority’s own attorney told an appeals court that Gainesville’s voter-approved charter amendments amounted to “insurrection against the state of Florida.” That case is still pending, and the legislature is trying to make it moot before a ruling comes down.
No kings, no thrones, no crowns. Not in Tallahassee, and not over our utility.
A Reasonable and Fair Position
The state should address the legitimate problem, which is out-of-city customers paying unfair rates without representation. This should be done through principled, uniform regulation, not politically targeted legislation. If the concern is fairness for extraterritorial utility customers, then regulate all utilities equitably. Don’t impose transparency and reporting burdens on municipal utilities that you would never impose on investor-owned utilities. And don’t use “consumer protection” as a vehicle to attack a city’s home rule authority over its own assets.
Take Action
The bill sits in the Florida Senate. Session ends March 13. Four days. The Senate companion bill (SB 1724) does not contain the GRU preemption language yet. There’s still time.
Call today:
Sen. Jennifer Bradley (R-District 6): (850) 487-5006 / bradley.jennifer.web@flsenate.gov
Sen. Stan McClain (R-District 9): Tallahassee: (850) 487-5009 / Gainesville: (352) 264-4040 / Ocala: (352) 732-1249 / mcclain.stan.web@flsenate.gov
Senate President’s office: (850) 487-5229
Say this: “I’m a Gainesville resident and GRU ratepayer. I urge you to oppose the GRU preemption language from HB 1451. Seventy-five percent of us voted for local control. Respect our vote.”
Four days. Make the calls.
NCFI EMBRACES MUTUAL AID
NO KINGS 3 - MARCH 28TH, 2026
