12/17/2014 (3) - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

the PSC's approval of the territorial agreement, should be read to restrict the Town's broad regulatory power to grant or deny franchises for the use of its rights-of-way and other public areas. § 366.11(2), Fla. Stat. (2014) ("Nothing herein shall restrict the police power of municipalities over their streets, highways, and public places..."). 60. In fact, in interpreting the jurisdictional limitations in Section 366.1 l(2), Florida Statutes, the PSC has expressly ruled that it has no authority to impose itself in a dispute over whether a franchise agreement should be allowed to expire. See PSC Order No. 10543 (Jan. 25, 1982). 61. Moreover, the territorial agreement itself expressly acknowledges that the service area boundaries contained therein may be terminated or modified by a court of law. 62. Thus nothing in the territorial agreement or the PSC approval thereof impedes the prosecution of this Complaint wherein the Town seeks to enforce its broad and sovereign regulatory powers to deny a franchise to another municipality for the use of the Town's rights- of-way and public areas. 63. The Town has elected not to renew the Franchise Agreement with the City because the City continues to mismanage its electric utility and to charge the Town and its citizens unreasonable and excessive electric rates. 64. Pursuant to its broad regulatory powers over its rights-of-way and other public areas, the Town has the legal right to require the City to remove its electric utility infrastructure from the Town's public rights-of-way when the Franchise Agreement expires on November 6, 2016, and to obtain substitute electric service from other providers. See City of Indian Harbour Beach v. City of Melbourne, 265 So. 2d 422 (Fla. 4th DCA 1972). In that case the court was asked to resolve a similar inter-municipality dispute involving Melbourne's provision of utility 14 �9