|
Metrostat, BalsamWest reach right of way agreement
By Carey King
After being sent to the drawing board by Sylva leaders in December, fiber-optic companies BalsamWest FiberNet and Metrostat Technologies have come up with a compromise on how best to use the town’s crowded rights of way.
“It’s good for Metrostat, it appears to be good for Balsam West, and I know it’s good for the town,” Metrostat owner John Kevlin told board members March 3. “If (the agreement) had signature lines on it, I would sign it.”
Founded by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and Drake Enterprises, Balsam West is in the midst of building a fiber-optic backbone throughout Western North Carolina, linking Murphy, Andrews, Bryson City, Sylva and Franklin. Company representatives last fall told Sylva leaders that a critical part of that network is a link to the Verizon central office on Municipal Drive, and petitioned the town for the necessary rights of way along that road and a portion of Allen Street.
Since Sylva-based Metrostat signed a 10-year franchise agreement for town rights of way in 2002, town leaders asked BalsamWest to work with Metrostat to develop a way to share a space already crowded with gas, water and sewer lines.
While details of the final agreement have yet to be released and attorneys have yet to draw up formal documents, the compromise plan has the two companies each laying duct for the other as they build their routes underground.
“BalsamWest will build some, and Metrostat others,” said BalsamWest attorney Henry Campen.
The verbal compromise was enough for Sylva leaders to grant BalsamWest the use of the Municipal Drive and Allen Street rights of way. On a motion by town board member Maurice Moody seconded by board member Ray Lewis, the vote was unanimous.
BalsamWest currently has cable running from Dillsboro up North River Road to Southwestern Community College, a path that connects the school with its other campuses in Macon and Swain counties.
Metrostat has laid lines in downtown Sylva, behind Mark Watson Park, and from the Webster Bridge up N.C. 116, then down N.C. 107 toward Sylva.
“Our business plan is to cover every major road in Sylva,” Kevlin said in December.
BalsamWest’s plan is to extend lines from SCC up N.C. 116 to 107, then alongside the highway to Grandma’s Pancake Barn, turning on Business 23 toward Harris Regional Hospital. From Hospital Road, the line would continue to U.S. 23/74, heading west on the four-lane to Exit 83, then down Grindstaff Cove Road into Sylva and west on Business 23 to Dillsboro. From there, the company could tap back into its already-existing system.
Most of that route is along right of way belonging to the N.C. Department of Transportation, and BalsamWest already has DOT’s permission to use it, Campen said.
BalsamWest chief financial officer Sherry McCuller said in December that her company is a “carrier’s carrier” that focuses on wholesale service to major telecommunications companies such as Cingular, Verizon and AT&T rather than the Internet and voice services Metrostat provides to smaller businesses and homes. Part of the rush in hammering out an agreement with Metrostat, she said, is that BalsamWest is to begin providing service to Harris Regional Hospital this spring.
“We originally asked (Sylva) for a franchise agreement (in November), but then retracted and asked for the utility agreement to act faster,” McCuller said March 8.
Two public meetings are required before a town can grant a franchise for use of all its rights of way, but the Municipal Drive/Allen Street easement could be granted with just one vote, she said.
Now that the easement hurdle has been crossed, BalsamWest is again pursuing a franchise similar to Metrostat’s. Campen asked Sylva leaders to consider the matter as he presented information about the Metrostat/Balsam West compromise.
“BalsamWest would like the same franchise as Metrostat,” he said.
Though he asked town leaders to consider their March 3 meeting as one of the two necessary public forums to “expedite the process,” none of the board members made a motion to do so.
“It is not appropriate for the town to grant something to one telecommunications firm and not another, and that’s what we have here,” Campen told the board.
Sylva Mayor Brenda Oliver responded, saying that impeding competition is “not the intention of anyone.”
McCuller said after the meeting that Sylva’s reception of BalsamWest has been “unusual” compared to other towns.
“Generally, the other areas have been very glad to help us get in sooner rather than later,” she said. “Maybe it’s because it’s just not well understood. Maybe we haven’t done as much outreach as we should. They may not know what they have today, but in the future Sylva and Metrostat will see the benefit.”
In other business March 3:
• Main Street trees: Members of Sylva Partners in Renewal “weren’t real thrilled” when they heard that town public works director Dan Schaeffer said maple trees on Main Street should come down, SPIR director Linda Gillman told board members.
Schaeffer told board members in February that the trees’ roots are pushing up bricks in the sidewalk and suggested replacing them with dogwoods.
Gillman disagreed, saying that SPIR had hired both a landscape architect and an arborist to inventory the trees and develop a maintenance schedule for them. Both consultants said the trees are appropriate for the downtown area and will not grow too large, she said.
“We’ve had two unrelated experts saying the same thing,” Gillman said.
“You can’t have a beautiful downtown with no trees,” she said.
SPIR received an $8,000 grant for the tree inventory from the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources and has a chance to receive $12,000 more should their application be granted for Sylva to become a “Tree City USA.”
The group submitted a draft ordinance to board members in October that would create a Town Tree Board and set regulations about the types of trees that may be planted in public spaces. The board would be composed of SPIR members.
The ordinance is expected to be discussed at the town board’s March work session, set for 10 a.m. Thursday, March 17.
• New boundary lines: Board members unanimously agreed to adopt a new survey of town-limit lines in an effort to update outdated town records from the late 19th century.
Asheville surveying firm Webb Morgan completed the new drawing in 2000, and Jackson County’s mapping office recently incorporated that information into official tax maps. In comparing old and new records, it was found that the official Sylva limits bisect nearly 50 properties in areas including Sunrise Park, Dills Cove, Kings Mountain, Savannah Drive and Elm Street.
Some of those tracts are considered to be in town and are on the Sylva tax roll, but others are listed solely on the county roster.
Board members unanimously approved a plan to annex the properties with 51 percent or more of their area in town. Public meetings on the matter will be advertised in coming weeks, Oliver said.
• Stormwater control: Three engineering firms are currently under consideration for stormwater management improvements to be made with a $40,000 grant the town recently received from the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund.
A consultant selection committee made up of the mayor, town Manager Richard McHargue, Schaeffer, plus Lewis and Moody – the two town board members who serve on Sylva’s street committee – selected the three from six firms who expressed interest.
The committee was scheduled to complete interviews by today (Thursday) with representatives from Mountain Environmental and Bradshaw Engineering, both of Waynesville, and Appalachian Environmental Services of Webster.
• Business news: A Sav-Mor grocery store will soon go in the old A&P building in Sylva Plaza, Zoning Administrator Jim Aust reported. In addition, the partnership that owned Skyland Architectural Woodworks has split and the business will soon vacate the old QC Apparel building, Aust said.
• Voluntary annexation: Aust told board members that he received a petition from Heryati Lang to annex Lang’s three-quarter acres on Plum Street, located across N.C. 107 from Wal-Mart.
“Her main goal is that she wants to open up a restaurant and be able to serve malt beer and wine,” Aust said.
Discussion of the voluntary annexation is expected at the board’s March work session.
• Minutes microfilming: Minutes from Sylva board meetings dating back to 1992 will soon take a trip to Raleigh to be microfilmed by the state Department of Cultural and Historical Resources.
State law dictates that a town’s records may not leave town hall for more than 24 hours without permission from town leaders.
Board members unanimously approved the microfilming project. The record books are expected to be back in Sylva within the month.
|
