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Wireless Initiative Approval Process: Next Steps

The proposed agreement between the City and Earthlink needs to be approved by three City government bodies: the San Francisco Public
Utilities Commission (PUC), the Planning Department and the Board of
Supervisors.

The Pole-Use Agreement needs to be approved by the PUC to allow
EarthLink to place its network equipment on City owned street light
poles and to use City rights of way and other assets. The full Public
Utilities Commissioners is expected to consider the Pole-Use agreement
in an upcoming Commission meeting. The latest version of the Pole Use
agreement can be found at
http://www.sfgov.org/site/tech_connect_page.asp?id=40515 See
http://sfwater.org/mto_main.cfm/MC_ID/18/MSC_ID/113/MTO_ID/340 for upcoming PUC meeting notices and agendas.

The Planning Department must make two separate determinations (1)
whether the proposed network is consistent with the City’s General Plan, and (2) whether a full environmental review under the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is necessary.

The ordinance governing the agreement between the City and Earthlink
needs to be approved by the Board of Supervisors. The Mayor’s Office
signed the agreement and submitted the ordinance for consideration to
the Board of Supervisors in January 2007. The ordinance initially needs
to be assigned to the Budget and Finance Committee for their
consideration. If approved in committee, the ordinance will be
submitted to the Board of Supervisors for a final vote. A copy of this
agreement can be found HERE


Resolution 070022 is a separate but related piece of pending legislation. The resolution calls for further analysis to be carried
out on a municipally-owned wireless network as an alternative to a
public-private partnership model with EarthLink and their partner
Google. The resolution was approved by the Budget and Finance Committee on March 7, but on March 20, the full Board of Supervisors re-referred the resolution to the Budget and Finance Committee. The resolution can be found HERE