ANGOLA — City and town councils across Steuben County are scrambling to adopt resolutions in the coming days that will grant them the greatest power under a new Indiana law to prevent new power poles being erected in areas where only underground utilities are present.
A new law requires that municipalities have resolutions in place by midnight Sunday. The bill was signed by the president of the Senate on Tuesday. It was sponsored by Rep. David Ober, R-Albion, who chairs the House utilities committee and had a hand in crafting the legislation.
The new law, unlike most new laws that have effective dates of July 1, has a May 1 deadline to have resolutions in place that allows municipalities control over utility pole placement. If communities do not adopt resolutions by May 1, they will still have some powers over placement of utility poles, but not as much, Ober said Wednesday night.
Consequently, councils across Steuben County are holding special meetings on Friday and Saturday in order to adopt resolutions so their municipalities have the greatest leverage available to them under the new state law. The resolutions must go in effect Monday.
“I feel bad that these communities are rushing to adopt these resolutions but we also had to prevent blanket resolutions (at a later date that could have greatly prohibited utility pole placement),” Ober said. “We’re allowing local government … before that May 1 deadline, they can prevent utilities from putting new poles where there are underground utilities (only).”
The resolutions allow municipalities to prohibit the placement of new utility poles or new wireless support structures for micro wireless facilities in rights-of-way designated strictly for underground utilities.
The law also requires utilities that plan on installing new poles to give notice to neighborhood associations before they do so.
Because of the many covenants and other requirements in certain neighborhoods that allow only underground utilities, Ober said he felt these areas had the tools to prevent utility poles. Consequently, he said he felt cities and towns that are adopting the resolutions were probably just trying to protect themselves.
“They are probably out of abundance of caution adopting these ordinances,” Ober said.
Part of the proposed resolution being considered by the Angola Board of Public Works and Safety on Friday says, “the City of Angola hereby designates as strictly for underground or buried utilities all public right-of-way areas where underground or buried utilities exist as shown on the maps and records of the City of Angola Engineering Department. Such underground or buried utilities include sanitary sewer and storm sewer infrastructure, water infrastructure, and fiber optic cable.”
Reporter Ashlee Hoos contributed to this report.