Lauzen swipes at Kane board after death of utility pole program
Tuesday marked the acknowledged death of a program Kane County officials once believed would reap thousands of dollars in new, nontax revenue.
However, while county board members wrote it off as an unfortunate casualty of a new state law, Chairman Chris Lauzen marked it as a failure that could have, and should have, been avoided.
The Small Wireless Deployment Act signed into state law this year undercut a plan first envisioned by Lauzen. The idea was to lease space on county infrastructure to cellphone service providers seeking to deploy amplification devices. Lauzen planned to charge companies such as AT&T, Sprint and Verizon $250 per month on each county utility pole the companies wanted to use. The new law limits such fees to $200 per year.
"They see this as a public need and a public benefit and the government has the responsibility to facilitate it," said Tom Rickert, the county's deputy director of transportation. "This is a new phenomenon. The state has decided all these utility companies have the right to impact our right of way. It's very concerning. We were hoping for a more balanced approach, but this is what we have to work with."
Leasing cellphone amplification space was one of the key planks in Lauzen's re-election campaign. But when the state's attorney's office rebuked him for hiring an outside law firm to explore the legal options to make it happen, Lauzen turned over the project to the county board.
"We were hoping this would be a substantial revenue generator, but now it looks like we'll barely cover our costs, at best," said Drew Frasz, chairman of the county board committee tasked with the project.
Lauzen, in an interview, said that kind of thinking has him looking forward to November when a new county board will be elected. Lauzen believes the new board will deliver him a strong majority of support for his ideas.
"Outcomes like this are the consequences to decisions made by several board members," Lauzen said. "I don't accept the outcome, but if we're going to do the same things over and over, well, it ain't working. No revenue was generated, and that was two long years ago we had to work on this project. We squandered an opportunity by moving more slowly than the state government, which sets the standard for slow movement."
Lauzen believes his two other ideas for new, nontax revenue still have a chance if the right work ethic is applied. Those ideas are bringing a waste-to-fuel facility to the county and monetizing access to the county's fiber-optic network.