Communities to Seek Second Calif. Small-Cell Veto
Localities will urge Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to veto a California small-cells bill passed Thursday. Local lawyers Friday decried -- as the wireless industry praised -- SB-556 to codify an FCC $270 cap on annual small-cell attachment rates and shorten shot clocks. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown (D) vetoed a small-cells bill opposed by localities in 2017 (see 1710170026). Some doubt Newsom will do the same.
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Senators voted 27-6 for SB-556. Two Democrats and four Republicans voted no. Wednesday, the Assembly supported the measure 53-9, with three Democrats joining six Republicans voting no. The legislature unanimously passed two other less controversial bills preempting local governments. The Senate voted 39-0 Thursday to concur with Assembly amendments to SB-378, which would require localities to let fiber installers use microtrenching unless shown it would hurt health and safety (see 2108190051). The Assembly voted 72-0 Aug. 30 to pass that bill. The chamber voted 72-0 Thursday to concur with Senate amendments to AB-537, which would add a deemed-granted wireless remedy, after the Assembly passed the bill 39-0 Wednesday.
Newsom will evaluate all three bills when they reach his desk, a spokesperson said Friday.
“We will be asking for a veto” of SB-556, Tracy Rhine, Rural County Representatives of California senior legislative advocate, told us Friday. California State Association of Counties and Urban Counties of California will join RCRC, she said. The county groups sent an Aug. 31 alert to all Assembly members opposing SB-556. The measure “does not merely conform state law to federal law, but imposes unreasonable application processing timelines, enacts an unnecessary and restrictive cost formula on publicly funded property, and significantly expands the reach of these provisions to infrastructure outside of the public rights-of-way, without any public benefit,” said the alert: It also effectively precludes application denials.
The League of California Cities will request the governor veto SB-566, a spokesperson said.
The Wireless Infrastructure Association applauds California legislators' “bipartisan recognition of the need to reduce barriers to wireless and broadband deployment, particularly in light of the pandemic,” said Associate Counsel Stephen Keegan. SB-556 is a “balanced framework” that would expand access to existing infrastructure and facilitate new deployment, while spurring competition and reducing costs for consumers, he said.
“Brown wisely vetoed the last industry-sponsored small cell bill” passed by the legislature, emailed Best Best attorney Gail Karish. “His veto statement said ‘the interest which localities have in managing rights of way requires a more balanced solution.’ That wasn’t achieved in SB 556.”
With Newsom in a recall election, “it seems unlikely that he will have the ability to publicly oppose this gift ... of California taxpayer funds to support the for-profit wireless industry,” said local government attorney Jonathan Kramer of Telecom Law Firm. Tellus Venture Associates President Steve Blum also doubts a veto during an expensive and “chaotic” recall election, and with a Democratic supermajority voting for SB-566. “Brown followed his own mind, which ... was at once keenly political and driven by his own values and intellect,” emailed the local government consultant. “Newsom is keenly political, full stop.”
SB-556 lowers industry costs and burdens local governments even more than the FCC’s small-cell order and the 2017 California bill, emailed Kramer. “Local governments will face a new set of very short action shot clocks to respond to street light and pole attachment applications. Worse yet, if an attachment application is approved, the local government has a mere 14 calendar days to provide make-ready costs, and to complete the make ready in as few as 60 calendar days.”