Opinion ID: 835697
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The board's authority under the territorial allocation statutes

Text: We first consider whether the territorial allocation statutes restrict the board's ability to exercise its charter authority to exclude Emerald and to extend its own electric utility services into Emerald's allocated exclusive service territory. The board recognizes, as it must, that the territorial allocation statutes expressly apply to cities and other municipalities, that those statutes provide a comprehensive framework for the allocation of exclusive service territories to utility providers, and that the PUC has sole authority under that statutory framework to approve such allocations. Pointing to certain municipal powers preserved under ORS 758.470 [9]  including the power to issue franchises, the power of condemnation, and the power to provide utility services to other municipal installations  the board nevertheless contends that the territorial allocation statutes contemplate a city overriding PUC territorial allocation to another utility provider within the city's boundaries. Of the municipal powers preserved under ORS 758.470 that the board invokes, we view only a city's power to issue franchises to utility providers as relevant to the question whether the board may override the PUC's allocation to Emerald of the annexed area at issue. ORS 758.470(1) provides that the territorial allocation statutes shall not be construed or applied to restrict the powers granted to cities to issue franchises[.] We conclude that, by referring to the franchise powers granted to cities, ORS 758.470(1) preserves a city's franchise authority over utilities governed by the territorial allocation statutes to the extent that the legislature had granted cities that authority under ORS 221.420. The territorial allocation statutes therefore limit a city's franchise authority in this context to only the authority that ORS 221.420(2)(a) confers. We, therefore, now turn our inquiry to that statute to determine whether the board is correct in asserting that ORS 221.420(2)(a) affirmatively authorizes a city to exclude a PUD from the city's boundaries.