2019-128 Dallas Drive Stub PolesDate: June 14, 2019 Report No. 2019-128
INFORMAL STAFF REPORT SUBJECT:
Update on the progress made on the removal of franchised utility stub poles along
Dallas Drive from Interstate Highway 35E, northward to Smith Street. PURPOSE:
The purpose of this Informal Staff Report is to provide an update to the City Council
concluding item request on Tuesday June 11th regarding Denton Municipal Electric (DME) efforts to work with current joint pole attachment users to remove unused or aesthetically unpleasing existing stub poles along Dallas Drive from Interstate Highway 35E, northward to Smith Street.
DISCUSSION: Based on aesthetic concerns received regarding a number of existing stub, or topped off, poles in the general area of Dallas Drive and Teasley Lane, in conjunction with existing
overhead distribution DME circuits, a presentation was prepared and presented to the Denton City Council on February 5, 2019. Prior to the Council meeting, DME had identified the two telecom asset owners located along Dallas Drive, who are Charter and Frontier. DME hosted a meeting with their
representatives on January 4, 2019. At this meeting DME expressed the City of Denton’s concerns over the number of stub poles and asked both telecom providers for their input as to what they believe could be done to assist with relocating or removing their attachments from the existing stub poles to either DME’s poles or go underground.
Both Charter and Frontier were made aware of the scheduled presentation to the
Council and were asked to supply their thoughts or comments prior to the Council presentation being given. Shortly after this, Charter informed DME it had relocated all their facilities over to the existing DME poles. This allowed DME to remove five poles which were no longer in use. However, numerous stub poles remained with Frontier
attachments. Frontier’s replied the only option they had was to convert all their
facilities underground – but that would be at a substantial cost. Frontier had provided no actual cost values for this overhead to underground conversion. During the presentation to Council, two options were provided:
Option One included DME maintaining its overhead distribution circuits along Dallas Drive and to continue work with current telecom attachees on the stub poles in this area. As mentioned previously, Charter had already accommodated the City of Denton and transferred its assets to the existing DME distribution circuits which allowed for the
removal of several poles along Dallas Drive.
Date: June 14, 2019 Report No. 2019-128
Option Two included converting DME’s existing overhead circuits in the area to underground. From the aspect of joint users, this would force them to also convert their facilities to underground. The cost provided to the Council for DME’s portion of the
overhead to underground conversion was estimated to cost upwards to $7.8 million. Any additional costs that may have to be paid to the telecom companies were not known or presented to the Council. Council directed DME to move forward with the first option – continue negotiations
with joint users to strongly encourage them to transfer their facilities to DME poles or relocate their facilities underground. After several phone calls with numerous Frontier personnel, over several weeks since Council’s direction, DME feels it has now identified the most likely person, within the Frontier organization, who would be our
primary contact for discussions related to this project.
DME has contacted Frontier’s representative who has expressed a willingness to discuss the topic of stub poles (Frontier’s term is “double wood”), as well as the payment of past arrear amounts, and finally to work with them to execute the new Pole Attachment
Agreement using Council’s approved legal template. Frontier has asked for an
inventory, with locations, of the currently known stub or double wood poles in Denton. To provide Frontier as much information, and as currently accurate, DME Maintenance Crews have been performing a city-wide inventory discovery to identify locations of all stub poles within the City Limits. This discovery should be complete in the next few
weeks. After it is complete, and both a listing and map are prepared, DME will
schedule a time to meet with Frontier’s representative who is in San Angelo, Texas to begin formal discussions and negotiations of the three topics aforementioned. CONCLUDING REMARKS:
DME remains committed to working with all the exiting joint users throughout Denton to eliminate as many of the stub poles as possible across town. DME continues to actively move forward with getting all joint users to sign the new
Pole Attachment Agreement which was approved by Council. Agreements with MCImetro and Unite Private Networks have both been recently approved by the Council and are now fully executed. Updated Pole Attachment Agreements for Grande Communication and University of North Texas are actively being worked on. DME will continue to proactively keep Council updated on these items.
STAFF CONTACT: Jerry Fielder, P.E., Division Engineering Manager – Distribution Denton Municipal Electric
940-349-7173
jerry.fielder@cityofdenton.com