Clintonville’s pole contract hadn’t been updated in 5 years
By Bert Lehman
The Clintonville City Council has approved a pole contract between the city and Spectrum Mid-America LLC.
The council approved the contract at the Aug. 13 meeting.
The contract provides rules and regulations for Spectrum Mid-America to use poles owned by the city of Clintonville.
Prior to approving the contract, Alderman Jim Supanich informed the council that this contract hadn’t been update for at least five years.
“And there was a fair amount of confusion about responsibilities in the original contract,” Supanich said. “We had to go back about five years. Most of those items have been cleared up, hopefully.”
Supanich added that the fees being charged in the contract are representative to other similar contracts in the area.
Brian Ellickson, electric utility manager for Clintonville Utilities, said that to his knowledge, the city did not have this type of contract prior to five years ago.
“To the best of my knowledge there has never been a written document, which seems ludicrous to me,” Ellickson said. “When this is signed, we will actually have an agreement. And it’s not so much about the money.”
Ellickson said he was more concerned about timeliness and rules, and financial penalties if the rules are not abided by. He said the city owns the poles, and there needs to be written documentation about things being done that are unsafe and dangerous, as well as specify deadlines.
“This addresses that and a whole lot of other issues,” Ellickson said.
He added that he hopes to use this contract as a model for contracts with other communication companies.
“I was more concerned about the rules and construction standards, that they actually have to fill out a piece of paper and ask to attach to a pole, rather than them putting something up and we find out later only when it is damaging something else because it wasn’t done correctly,” Ellickson said.