The end of agreements between Charter Communications and the cities of Gilroy, Hollister and San Juan Bautista may mean tens of thousands of dollars in extra costs for local school districts, the Hollister wastewater treatment plant, the San Juan Bautista library and other agencies.
Charter Communications currently provides the municipalities with the use of their dark fiber—some of the company’s unused strands of fiber optic cables, which can connect county and city agencies to centrally based servers—at no cost but will charge steep prices for continued use after contracts expire Jan. 1.
“I’m really upset with Charter.net right now in that they’re unwilling to work with us,” said Ruben Zepeda, superintendent of the Aromas-San Juan Unified School District. “What they’re planning on doing is going to have a specific impact on what we’re doing in the district including purchasing textbooks for students.”
At the Aromas-San Juan Unified School District, continuing to bring Charter Communications fiber to just two of their schools-Anzar High School and San Juan Bautista Elementary-could cost about $31,385.76 for a one-year contract.
“The reason for the (rate) change is the fact that those contracts are expiring at the end of the year,” said Brian Anderson, regional director of communications for Charter Communications.
The original franchise agreement allowed the company to install cable in exchange for giving cities use of the material for about 10 years free of charge, said Paul Da Silva, the information systems manager for Hollister.
The current contract is a settlement from the franchise agreement, cut short in 2009 when California passed a law requiring utilities to negotiate directly with the state instead of cities. Under the settlement, Charter Communications granted use of dark fiber for another five years but restricted the number of strands used from six to two, Da Silva said. That agreement ends at the close of this month.
“This isn’t news to these agencies,” Da Silva said with a laugh. “So I don’t know if they’re trying to make a big deal of it or whatever. This was five years in the making.”
While the Aromas-San Juan Unified School District staff-which brought on a new superintendent and district technology manager within the last year-is wondering how to pay bills not planned into their budget, the City of Hollister partnered with the county to install $640,000 worth of their own fiber so that they wouldn’t have to pay a utility company for the resource. They’ll still negotiate contracts with utility companies, such as Charter Communications, for Internet. But the costs will be less because they can use their own fiber.
The City of Hollister plans to pay $29,000 for Charter Communications to provide dark fiber to the Hollister City Yard on 1321 South St. and the wastewater plant at 2690 San Juan Hollister Road for one year, while they finish a project that will bring their own fiber to these locations, Da Silva said.
In nearby San Juan Bautista, city hall officials are still deciding a course of action. They haven’t laid their own fiber and they haven’t signed a contract with Charter Communications, according to Trish Paetz, the administrative services manager.
“We don’t know yet,” Paetz said. “We’re just talking further with them.”
The cost of continuing to use Charter Communications fiber is drastically more expensive for city hall in San Juan Bautista than it is in Hollister, costing an estimated $12,960.48 a year compared with $330.48 for a one-year contract. That is because Charter Communications bases its rates for fiber on distance and San Juan Bautista fibers must travel more terrain to get to their destinations.
“The simplest answer is, it really is tied to geography,” Anderson said. “Dark fiber costs are based on the distance between connection points.”
Still, for Zepeda, the proposed costs are high, especially since the current district doesn’t have the funds already set aside.
“It’s still a significant amount of money that we weren’t planning on spending,” Zepeda said. “I’m going to fight them as much as I can.”
List of Hollister sites affected by rate increases:
911 Dispatch
Hollister Municipal Airport
Hollister City Yard
Hollister City Hall
Community Center
Hollister Fire Station #1
Hollister Fire Station #2
Hollister School District office
Cerra Vista Elementary
Marguerite Maze Middle School
Rancho San Justo Middle School
San Benito High School
San Andreas Continuation High School
Hollister Police Department
City Public Works
RDA Successor Office
San Benito County Health and Human Services
San Benito County Jail
San Benito County Office of Education
San Benito County Public Works
Veterans Memorial Building
Wastewater Treatment Plant
List of San Juan Bautista sites affected by rate increases:
San Juan Bautista City Hall
San Juan Bautista Elementary
Anzar High School
San Juan Bautista Library
