270 BRIDGE STREET, SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA 93401 O 805.783.4945 M 805.550.1627 [email protected] Lisa Ludovici
Director
Government Affairs
May 5, 2025
Public Comment of Charter Communications, Inc. (Spectrum) Regarding Prospective Crescent City Rule 20A Project
As part of this project, PacificCorp and Charter would convert their aerial facilities to underground facilities through joint trenching. For Charter, this project would require the underground conversion of its equipment and the installation of new nodes, power supplies, and accompanying wiring, as well as the design thereof (collectively referred to herein as “cabling”) at significant expense. The accumulated work credits available to PacificCorp for this project are not available to Charter. This results in Charter bearing all of its costs to participate in the undergrounding project.
Should the City decide to move forward with this project, Charter will comply; however, in accordance with state law and California Public Utilities Commission (“Commission”) regulation, Charter submits it has the right to access joint trenches being constructed by PacifcCorp without being required to contribute to joint trenching costs. As per our citations below, Charter’s financial commitment is limited to the cost of its own cabling materials and labor to move its facilities to the joint trench.
1. State law and California Public Utilities Commission regulation entitle Charter to access joint trenches that are constructed by PacificCorp.
Public Utilities Code Section 767.5 grants cable providers such as Charter the right to the “excess capacity” of a public utility’s support structures, noting that this has been “a course of conduct covering many years.” 1 The Commission has reinforced this understanding in its decisions, finding that Section 767.5 provides cable operators with access to a public utility’s support structures subject to its Right-of-Way (“ROW”) rules.2 These rules prescribe the rates, terms, and conditions for cable operators to access a public utility’s infrastructure.3 State law and regulation 1 Pub. Util. Code § 767.5(b).
2 See Decision (“D.”) 15-05-002 at 24 (“Section 767.5 provides cable TV corporations with the right to access ‘surplus space’ and ‘excess capacity’ on public utility ‘support structures’ pursuant to rates, terms, and conditions established by the Commission in accordance with the statute.”). For the latest version of the Commission’s ROW rules, refer to D.22-10-025, Appendix A (“ROW Rules”). 3 D.15-05-002 at 24.
270 BRIDGE STREET, SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA 93401 O 805.783.4945 M 805.550.1627 [email protected] Lisa Ludovici
Director
Government Affairs
take an expansive view of support structures. Under both the statute and the ROW rules, a support structure “includes, but is not limited to,” poles, anchors, manholes, and handholes, and implicitly includes trenches.4 Under the ROW rules, a public utility may only deny a request by a cable operator to access the utility’s facilities for reason of “lack of capacity, safety, reliability, or engineering standards.”5
Here, PacifiCorp is a “public utility” as defined by state law6and would own the joint trench being constructed in the project area. Therefore, it is required to comply with Section 767.5 and its requirement to grant access to its support structures to cable operators such as Charter upon request, in accordance with the Commission’s ROW rules. PacifiCorp may only deny this request for lack of capacity, safety, reliability, or engineering standards,” reasons which do not exist here. Charter will work with PacifiCorp to access the joint trench in accordance with all requirements and procedures set forth in the ROW rules.
2. In accordance with state regulation and public policy, Charter is not required to contribute to any costs other than the cost of its cabling materials and the labor to install said materials.
The Commission’s ROW rules contain provisions regarding cost sharing for cable operators seeking access to a public utility’s infrastructure. Cable operators are required to contribute the “actual costs incurred by the public utility for rearrangements performed at the request of the … cable TV company.”7 Additionally, if a public utility incurs costs to expand capacity on its support structure to accommodate a cable operator’s facilities, then the cable operator must pay costs proportionate to the space on the support structure occupied by the cable operator.8 Here, neither of these provisions apply. As the joint trench is newly dug and created, PacifiCorp would not incur any actual costs to “rearrange” its facilities and therefore would not incur any capacity expansion costs. Charter expects that the trench would not need to be materially expanded beyond PacifCorp’s specifications in order to accommodate Charter’s facilities. Also, PacifiCorp 4 Pub. Util. Code § 767.5(a)(2); ROW Rules at A-5, Rule II(U). The ROW rules further include provisions regarding support structure capacity expansions, explicitly naming trenching as an example. See ROW Rules at A-28, Rule VIII(C)(1).
5 ROW Rules at A-8, Rule IV(B)(2).
6 See Pub. Util. Code § 216(a).
7 ROW Rules at A-23, Rule VI(B)(1)(a).
8 ROW Rules at A-28, Rule VIII(C).
270 BRIDGE STREET, SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA 93401 O 805.783.4945 M 805.550.1627 [email protected] Lisa Ludovici
Director
Government Affairs
would not incur additional costs for constructing its trench due to “safety or reliability requirements”; rather, PacifiCorp’s trenching would be done to comply with the City’s ordinance for its own overhead facilities. In other words, any trenching activities would constitute sunk costs for the utility. Therefore, Charter is not required to contribute to trenching costs under state law and regulations.
Furthermore, the process of undergrounding Charter’s facilities yields no direct additional benefit to Charter’s customers who reside in Crescent City, yet it imposes upon them significant costs.
Should the city decide to pursue undergrounding, it would disproportionately shift Charter’s costs of that city-wide benefit onto a much smaller subset of citizens: Charter’s customers. In effect, Charter customers would subsidize the project through increased operating costs to Charter and eventually higher prices to sustain service in Crescent City. Absent additional funding being provided to Charter from the city, the costs of this public benefit would not result in the stated intent of the notice that “Property owner costs are intended to be zero to minimal.” Therefore, Charter respectfully asks that the City not pursue this project.