(A) The purpose of this subchapter is to establish policy governing the management of highways for the provision of telecommunications services to enable the city to:
(1) Issue licenses and franchises on a competitively neutral and non-discriminatory basis, to telecommunications corporations who use the highways to provide telecommunications services, except in cases where state law forbids establishment of a license or franchise requirement;
(2) Manage the highways in order to minimize the impact and cost to the city citizens of the placement of telecommunications facilities within highways;
(3) Manage the highways so as to maximize their efficient use, thereby minimizing the foreclosure of future additional uses of each rights-of-way; and
(4) Minimize congestion, inconvenience, visual impact, and other adverse effects from the use on the city’s highways.
(B) The City Council finds that the city’s highways constitute a valuable public asset:
(1) Having been acquired and maintained by the city over many years at great taxpayer expense;
(2) Providing uniquely valuable property that private telecommunications providers may wish to use for profit-making purposes that may not necessarily benefit all the residents of the city; and
(3) Comprising significant assets which the city must manage as a public fiduciary trust to enhance the public health, safety, and welfare.
(C) Therefore, in this subchapter, the City Council intends:
(1) To ensure that locally elected officials manage local highways consistent with their fiduciary trust obligations;
(2) To ensure compliance with public health, safety, and welfare measures for highways;
(3) To encourage public-private partnerships to provide telecommunications facilities needed for the most cost-effective delivery of public services, including schools, libraries, police and fire protection, as well as private services;
(4) To conserve the limited physical capacity of the highways held in public trust by the city; and
(5) To assure that the city’s current and ongoing costs of granting and regulating private access to and use of the highways are fully paid by the persons seeking the access and causing the costs.
(Prior Code, § 18-6-1)