Chatt311 App
On Tuesday, Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke debuted the city’s new CHATT311 smartphone app, which enables citizens another means of accessing city services such as brush pickup, pothole repair and park reservations. Chattanooga residents still can contact the city’s 311 system by email and phone.“This app is the next step in delivering goverment services,” Berke said during a demonstration at the city’s 311 call center.Corey Wentz, project manager for the application, said it took six months to develop CHATT311. It cost under $50,000 to develop, he said.
The Chattanooga City Council has given its initial blessing to a $131,750 franchise agreement allowing a telecommunications company to install and operate underground cabling in the public right of way.
The most recent version of the five-year contract with Zayo Group of Boulder, Colo., comes five months after a 6-3 council vote in favor of an agreement that would have only provided $10,270 in compensation to the city. A second mandatory approval for the original agreement has lingered through several deferred votes, contentious discussions and legal wrangling. Council members Ken Smith, Carol Berz and Russell Gilbert opposed the first deal.
Zayo will offer bandwidth opportunities to cellular services companies in various areas of the city.
On Tuesday, the council voted 8-0 in favor of the new agreement, with Berz absent.
"Ultimately, it's establishing a good rate; it's establishing the legal case on how we need to proceed on these issues coming to the city," Smith said prior to the meeting. "Legally, we can't deny a franchise. The only determining factor we are really discussing here is what the contract's going to look like."
Throughout the summer and fall, Smith repeatedly called for Chattanooga's Department of Economic and Community Development and the City Attorney to inform the council regarding the basis for the agreement's compensation - originally calculated at just under 6 cents per linear foot of cabling - and a firm policy basis governing similar franchise agreements going forward.
City officials told the council the 6-cent rate was equivalent to Knoxville's rate.
"We're not Knoxville," Berz said during a September meeting.
The new agreement rate is 75 cents per linear foot of underground cabling and the agreement allows for the possibility for the city to adjust the rate upward in accordance with future cost-benefit studies.
The new deal developed after mediation between the city and Zayo, who filed a lawsuit in November claiming the city was obstructing franchise rights pertaining to communications infrastructure. According to state law, a city cannot simply deny such franchise rights.
Several council members said the matter had been in the hands of city administration for at least 12 months prior to coming before the council in July.
"Telecommunications technology is rapidly changing and growing cities like ours, at times, have to build the regulatory airplane as we fly it," City Attorney Wade Hinton said in an email after the council vote. "We look forward to welcoming Zayo to Chattanooga, and to working with City Council in crafting policies that build on the fastest, most pervasive internet in the country."
The agreement will come before the council on Dec. 20 for a second and final vote.
Contact staff writer Paul Leach at 423-757-6481 or pleach@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @pleach_tfp.