(A) The purpose of this chapter is to establish a competitively neutral and non-discriminatory policy governing the management of public rights-of-way for the provision of telecommunications services. To that end, the City Council seeks to enable the city to:
(1) Authorize non-discriminatory and competitively neutral access to and use of the public rights-of-way by providers of telecommunications services, while ensuring that those who have placed facilities in the right-of-way or otherwise use such facilities to provide telecommunications services fairly compensate the city for that access and use; and
(2) Manage the public rights-of-way in order to minimize the impact and cost to Yuma citizens of the placement of telecommunications facilities within city rights-of-way; and
(3) Manage the public rights-of-way so as to maximize their efficient use, thereby minimizing the foreclosure of future additional uses of such rights-of-way; and
(4) Promote competition among telecommunications service providers and encourage the universal availability of advanced telecommunications services to all residents and businesses of the city; and
(5) Minimize congestion, inconvenience, visual impact, and other adverse effects on the city's public rights-of-way.
(B) The City Council finds that the city's rights-of-way 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;
(3) Representing public investments for which the taxpayers are entitled to a fair monetary return on the city's past and future investment in the city's infrastructure; and
(4) 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 chapter the City Council intends:
(1) To ensure that locally elected officials manage local rights-of-way consistent with their fiduciary trust obligations;
(2) To ensure compliance with public health, safety, and welfare measures for city rights-of-way;
(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 rights-of-way held in public trust by the city;
(5) To assure that the city's current and ongoing costs of granting and regulating private access to and use of the rights-of-way are fully paid by the persons seeking such access and causing such costs; and
(6) To secure fair and reasonable compensation to the city and the residents of the city for use of the rights-of-way for private installation of telecommunications facilities, in the exercise of its police and other powers insofar as permitted by state and federal law.
(Ord. O98-02, passed 1-7-98; Ord. 099-52, passed 8-4-99)