Vermont Statutes Title 24 Sec. 1912
Terms Used In Vermont Statutes Title 24 Sec. 1912
- Acquire: shall mean to purchase, to acquire by eminent domain, to hire, to lease, to construct, to reconstruct, or to replace. See
- Communications plant: shall mean any and all parts of any communications system owned by the municipality, whether using wires, cables, fiber optics, wireless, other technologies, or a combination thereof, and used for the purpose of transporting or storing information, in whatever forms, directions, and media, together with any improvements thereto hereafter constructed or acquired, and all other facilities, equipment, and appurtenances necessary or appropriate to such system. See
- Communications service: shall include ownership, operation, and utilization of a communications plant within or without the corporate limits of the municipality to transport or store information in any form and medium. See
- Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
- Domestic: when applied to a corporation, company, association, or copartnership shall mean organized under the laws of this State; "foreign" when so applied, shall mean organized under the laws of another state, government, or country. See
- Improve: shall mean to acquire or construct any improvement, whether consisting of real or personal property. See
- Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
- Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). Source: OCC
- Municipality: shall include a city, town, town school district, incorporated school or fire district or incorporated village, and all other governmental incorporated units. See
- Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
§ 1912. Communications plant; authority to acquire, construct, operate, improve, extend, and better
(a) A municipality is authorized and empowered to own, maintain, operate, improve, and extend, or otherwise acquire, and to sell, lease, or otherwise dispose of, in accordance with and in any situation or manner not prohibited by law, its communications plant for the furnishing of communications services within or without the corporate limits of the municipality, for public, domestic, commercial, and industrial use, and for the provision of communications service. For the aforesaid purposes, the municipality may hire, lease, purchase, own, hold, and acquire by contract, agreement, or eminent domain proceedings any buildings, land, rights-of-way, and any other real property necessary or convenient to the operation of the communications plant, and may use any public highway over which it may be necessary or desirable to pass with the poles and wire of the same, provided that the use of such public highway for the purpose of public travel is not thereby unnecessarily impaired. These powers may be exercised through a taking by eminent domain in the manner prescribed by law. All of the foregoing powers are in addition to and not in substitution for or in limitation of any other powers conferred by law.
(b) Before a municipality may sell any service using its communications plant subject to Public Utility Commission jurisdiction and for which a certificate of public good is required under 30 Vt. Stat. Ann. chapter 5 or 13, it shall obtain a certificate of public good for such service. Each such certificate of public good shall be nonexclusive and shall not contain terms or conditions more favorable than those imposed on existing certificate holders authorized to serve the municipality. (Added 2007, No. 79, § 4, eff. June 9, 2007.)