The purpose and intent of this chapter are to:
(a) Manage the public ways with regard to service providers and services;
(b) Establish clear local guidelines, time frames, and standards for exercise by the City of local authority with respect to the regulation of service providers using the City's public ways;
(c) Establish certain policies applying to cable television operators using the City's public ways;
(d) Promote competition in the utility, cable television and telecommunications industries;
(e) Encourage the provision of advanced and competitive utility, cable television and telecommunications services on the widest possible basis to the businesses, institutions and residents of the City;
(f) Permit and manage reasonable access to the public ways of the City for utility, cable television and telecommunications service purposes on a competitively neutral basis;
(g) Conserve the limited physical capacity of the public ways held in public trust by the City;
(h) Assure that the City's current and ongoing costs of granting and regulating private access to, and use of, the public ways are fully paid by the persons seeking such access and causing such costs;
(i) Reserve the right to secure fair and reasonable compensation for the City and the residents of the City on a competitively neutral and non-discriminatory basis for permitting private use of the public ways;
(j) Assure that all service providers providing facilities or services within or through the City comply with the ordinances, rules and regulations of the City;
(k) Assure that the City can continue to fairly and responsibly protect the public health, safety and welfare; and
(l) Enable the City to discharge its public trust consistent with rapidly evolving Federal and State regulatory policies, industry competition and technological development.
(Ord. 1998-11. Passed 6-22-98.)