Caring about the appearance of streets has yet to stifle innovation in California, San Francisco told the California Supreme Court in a filing we obtained Tuesday. The city and county responded Monday to T-Mobile's appeal from the California Court of Appeal for the First District. The lower court upheld a San Francisco ordinance meant to block installation of telecom equipment that would diminish the city's beauty, rejecting a challenge by T-Mobile, Crown Castle and ExteNet (see 1701240012). "The telephone corporations who are Appellants here contend that this Court must choose between progress and parochialism, because allowing cities to control the appearance of their streetscapes by regulating wireless equipment in the public right of way will destroy innovation in Telecommunications," San Francisco said. "Appellants posit a false choice." San Francisco said it has approved more than 98 percent of wireless facility permits sought through the time of bench trial in the case. “While Appellants deploy broad rhetoric that San Francisco’s regulations nullify their statewide franchise right and jeopardize their rollout of 5G wireless service, they never demonstrate that their ability to do business or provide service is impaired in any respect -- nor could they, when they have received nearly all of the permits they have sought under San Francisco’s wireless facility permitting regime.”

DirecTV field services union employees in four states voted to ratify an agreement between parent AT&T and the Communications Workers of America, AT&T and CWA said Friday. The contract covers about 300 DirecTV technicians, warehouse and administrative workers in Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico and Oregon through April 12, 2018, CWA said. It provides higher wage schedules for all workers, with a 3 percent wage increase effective April 9, and includes a profit sharing plan, premium pay, limits on forced overtime for technicians, notice about schedule changes and expanded health care options, CWA said. AT&T reached a tentative pact with CWA for the DirecTV workers last month (see 1702170020).

Washington state customers complained more about phone companies than any other regulated industry in 2016, the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission said in a news release Monday. Nearly half (576) of the 1,242 complaints last year concerned regulated landline companies, resulting in $34,080 in bill credits or refunds, the UTC said. Energy companies closely followed with 532 complaints, it said. The complaints mostly involved disputed bills, service quality, customer service and disconnections, it said.

A universal service bill moving through the Utah State Legislature could add revenue to the state USF, said a fiscal note issued Monday on SB-130. The Utah bill says telecom companies providing access lines, connections or wholesale broadband internet access service qualify for state USF distributions. It requires each provider to contribute to the USF and requires the Utah Public Service Commission to develop a method for calculating the amount of each contribution. And it makes wireless companies eligible for state Lifeline support. Enactment could “increase revenues to the Universal Public Telecommunications Service Support Fund, assuming the Public Service Commission adjusts surcharge rates to match fund disbursements,” said the fiscal note. “One aspect of the legislation, expansion of the state Lifeline Program to wireless customers, could require increased surcharge revenue to the fund of at least $1.1 million.” The bill means broadband and internet providers will face additional regulation and contribution requirements, while customers could pay increased surcharges, it said. Expanding the state Lifeline program could give $42 annually to at least 26,200 individuals, it said. The Utah Senate passed SB-130 on Feb. 27 and the bill awaits a House vote. The Utah PSC, which is considering contribution changes amid projections its fund could run out early this year, tentatively decided last July to increase its revenue-based surcharge as an interim step while the state legislature considers broader changes (see 1607150017).

State commissions should speedily review the CenturyLink/Level 3 merger while exercising self-restraint, Free State Foundation Senior Fellow Seth Cooper said in a Monday blog post. Some states already OK’d the $34 billion deal (see 1702140017), but others, including New York and Washington state, have set longer review schedules. State commissions should focus on merger-specific competitive effects, while the FCC analyzes public interest issues, he said. States “should avoid issues unrelated to the transaction and not impose needless administrative expenses or lost market opportunity costs through drawn-out proceedings,” Cooper said. He warned that the state review process can become costly, time-consuming and redundant. “Regulators can become preoccupied with non-merger specific issues and use their leverage to impose regulatory conditions on their approval that are unrelated to the transaction or perhaps more fit for industry-wide rulemakings,” Cooper said.

A Hawaii small-cells siting bill cleared a House committee Wednesday. The Consumer Protection and Commerce Committee voted 8-0 to pass HB-625 with amendments. The bill allows collocation of small wireless or wireline facilities and networks on state and local structures, poles and lighting, “subject only to clear and objective building permit standards.” Small facilities and networks wouldn’t be subject to special or conditional use permit in any public rights of way and property or any rural, agricultural or urban land. Providers could place up to 25 separate facilities on one application. Hawaii is one of several states considering wireless siting legislation (see 1702280039).

Personal emails and text messages by city employees may be made public under the California Public Records Act (CPRA), the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday. It overturned the contrary judgment of the 6th District Court of Appeal. Ted Smith in 2009 sought public records from San Jose, including emails and text messages sent or received on private devices used by the mayor, two council members and their staffs. When the city refused to disclose personal communications, Smith sued, saying the CPRA includes all communications about official business, no matter how they’re created, communicated or stored. “Employees’ communications about official agency business may be subject to CPRA regardless of the type of account used in their preparation or transmission,” Associate Justice Carol Corrigan wrote in the unanimous opinion. But the writing must relate in some substantive way to public business to qualify as a public record, she said. The ruling considered technological change, Corrigan said. “This case concerns how laws, originally designed to cover paper documents, apply to evolving methods of electronic communication. It requires recognition that, in today’s environment, not all employment-related activity occurs during a conventional workday, or in an employer-maintained workplace.” Electronic communication “has encouraged a commonplace tendency to share fleeting thoughts and random bits of information, with varying degrees of import, often to broad audiences,” Corrigan said. “The line between an official communication and an electronic aside is now sometimes blurred.” San Jose will respect the ruling, City Attorney Richard Doyle said in an interview. "We're not surprised," he said, because it follows a trend of similar state high court rulings in Illinois and Washington state. It's increasingly difficult to argue that public business on a private device is not subject to disclosure, he said. The city now will have to "grapple with protocols" for how to go about doing searches, and it might be helpful if the California legislature writes into law a set of rules for conducting searches, he said. It's a "major victory for transparency," the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a blog post: "Today’s decision will have wide-ranging impact on how public records are treated throughout the state, whether that’s elected officials communicating with lobbyists through Twitter direct messages or law enforcement officers exchanging controversial text messages on their personal smartphones."

Settlement talks between Verizon and the Communications Workers of America continued in a Pennsylvania probe of the company’s copper policies. Public Utility Commission Administrative Law Judge Joel Cheskis this week granted the parties’ request that the litigation schedule remain suspended until April 7, a PUC spokesman said Thursday. The parties previously said they hoped to wrap up talks March 1. Meanwhile, New York Public Service Commission hearings on a separate Verizon copper investigation may start in June (see 1703010048).

The Arizona Corporation Commission should narrow funding for broadband to rural areas and commercially provisioned, finished services, CenturyLink said in Tuesday comments on the ACC’s proposed broadband fund for rural schools (see 1702080022). But the ISP praised the commission’s other Feb. 15 revisions to draft amendments to the state’s USF rules, including capping the proposed fund at $8 million, limiting collection to 12 months and limiting the program to the 2017 and 2018 E-rate funding cycle. In other comments, AT&T urged the commission to clarify that it’s not asserting regulatory jurisdiction over broadband, prohibit overbuilding and limit funds to E-rate special construction projects. The Arizona commission plans an all-day workshop on the matter Thursday at 1 p.m. EST, the agency said in a Wednesday news release.

A Colorado small-cells wireless bill advanced through a House panel. The Business Affairs and Labor Committee voted 10-0 to clear HB-1193. It would allow industry to locate facilities in any zone, require local governments to process small-cell applications within 90 days and set a maximum access fee of $200 per pole or structure. At a live-streamed hearing Tuesday, witnesses from CTIA, Verizon and others in the wireless industry supported the bill, and a representative for the Colorado Municipal League, Colorado Counties Inc. and the Colorado Communication Utility Alliance said the groups were neutral. The three local groups negotiated terms of the bill with the wireless industry (see 1702280039). But a witness for another local group, the Associated Governments of Northwest Colorado, said the legislation would reduce revenue that local governments need to recover costs. Other states are considering similar bills, but sponsor and Chairwoman Tracy Kraft-Tharp (D) said her bill isn’t cookie-cutter: “I personally have been involved in hours of negotiation between different parties, and I can tell you that the different components involved in this bill are unique to Colorado’s needs.” Also Tuesday, the Minnesota House Commerce Committee advanced a small-cells bill (HF-739) to the Government Operations Committee.