Responding to my Opinion criticizing TEP for passing on the franchise fee cost to ratepayers, a former City Council member wrote in supporting the Franchise Agreement and Fee because without it TEP won't be able to do its job, that global warming has made everything associated with living here dicey and TEP needs access to help us all out.
The writer misses the point or intentionally missed it to make her own. TEP does not need any franchise agreement to access its infrastructure in Tucson or anywhere else. It has the right to do so under its Certificate of Convenience and Necessity (CCN) issued by the State of Arizona sometime around 1912 by the Arizona Corporation Commission. Not being required to obtain permits for its access is TEP's procedural benefit from the franchise agreement. It's only a money issue and likely not all that much anyway.
Implying that voter passage of the franchise agreement is required to help cope with global warming is illogical and unsupportable.
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Rick Rappaport
Oro Valley
Disclaimer: As submitted to the Arizona Daily Star.
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