Joshua Hunt, the city administrator of Florence, gave the City Council a briefing on Tuesday regarding a proposed electric franchise agreement that would establish guidelines for electric utilities’ operations inside city rights-of-way.
Duke Energy and Ownen Electric Cooperative are the two electric utilities in Florence.
It ensures that they restore any kind of sidewalks or streets that they tear out when they re doing new installs or going to any kind of repairs to the utility, Hunt explained in the Aug. 19 special council meeting.
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Hunt demonstrated rights-of-way and how utilities operate within them using a PowerPoint. According to Hunt, a right-of-way is a part of a street that is owned and maintained by the city.
The slides had annotated aerial photos that displayed city rights-of-way, power lines, water and sewer lines, and property lines.
Hunt clarified that it is difficult to carry out significant utility upgrades due to the restricted widths of rights-of-way.
It gets crowded even though there are occasionally wide right-of-ways, according to Hunt. particularly when it’s time to perform repairs or work inside the right-of-way. We might be working on a sidewalk project, or we frequently have the problem that you can’t replace a water main in the same trench when the time comes.On August 19, the Florence City Council was presented a presentation of the franchise agreement. David S. Rotenstein took the photo. LINK nky contributor
He stated that water service cannot be interrupted. While new water mains are being built, existing ones must stay open.
“Ideally, you would skip over to the location of the electric line,” Hunt added. You would install the water main down there if there were no other utilities in the right-of-way.
The city is compelled to bury water mains beneath the middle of the street when there is no more space left for the roadside. According to Hunt, that significantly raises the cost of any project.
Florence would be able to charge franchise fees because to the electric franchise agreements.
According to Hunt, several cities levy franchise fees in order to partially defray the expense of building. Additionally, he claimed that the utility providers charge their clients more. They are permitted to do so by the Public Service Commission.
Hunt explained that the next steps would be for the council to adopt an ordinance authorizing the publication of a nonexclusive franchise agreement and to solicit bids.
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