pole attachment

The case against the FCC’s preemption of local property ownership is taking shape. The first city to ask federal appellate court judges to put the FCC’s September wireless order on hold while legal wheels grind is North Little Rock, Arkansas, in partnership with a Missouri muni utility association.

Most of North Little Rock’s arguments are specific to municipal electric utilities. Federal law exempts municipal utilities from FCC pole attachment oversight. Muni electric utilities also have to follow more rigid safety requirements – working on high voltage lines is a dangerous job – and they have long-established procedures for working with telecommunications companies, wired and wireless alike.… More

Neither the Federal Communications Commission or mobile telecoms companies want to go to San Francisco to defend the agency’s preemption of local ownership of municipal property in the public right of way. They want to keep the growing list of appeals court challenges to the FCC’s September wireless deployment order in Denver.

In separate, but very similar, rebuttals the FCC and the beneficiaries of its generosity argued that the cases shouldn’t be transferred to the ninth circuit federal appeals court in San Francisco, as requested by the City of San Jose and its partners.… More

More than two dozen eastern, midwestern and Texan cities jumped into the court fight against the Federal Communications Commission’s preemption of local ownership of street light and other municipal property planted in the public right of way. The group, led by the City of Austin, filed its paperwork in the federal appeals court headquartered in the District of Columbia.

If I’m counting right, the deadline has now passed for any additional appeals, but there’s always the opportunity to join the fun as an intervenor, as the City of New York did.… More

The Federal Communications Commission says it has the authority to tell cities and counties what they can do with property they own, because otherwise they would be breaking the law. In a decision that should have surprised no one, the FCC refused to put its September wireless preemption ruling on hold.

Instead, in an odd bit of contradictory reasoning, the FCC’s latest order says it’s not taking away cities’ rights to property they own that’s located within the public right of way (ROW), such as street light poles and traffic signals.… More

The cities, counties and related associations that are challenging the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to preempt local ownership of streetlight poles and similar municipal property in the public right of way are asking to move the case from Denver to San Francisco. A motion to that effect was filed yesterday in the Denver-based tenth circuit court of appeals by the City of San Jose and the other west coast agencies that appealed the FCC decision in the last week of October.… More

Municipal electric utilities joined the challenge the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to preempt local ownership and control of streetlights and other publicly-owned infrastructure in the public right of way. The American Public Power Association, which represents cities, utility districts and other public agencies that provide electric service, filed a petition in the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. last week, asking that the ruling be overturned.

It argues…

In the Order, the Commission has improperly asserted regulatory authority and jurisdiction over the control and use of public power utility facilities.