Opinion ID: 2050767
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: Ch. 504, Laws of 1929. (A Revisor's bill.)

Text: Sec. 275 of the above amends sec. 196.50, Stats., to read as follows: (1) Certificate of necessity. No license, permit, or franchise shall be granted ... to own, operate, manage, or control any plant or equipment for the conveyance of telephone messages, or for the production, transmission, delivery, or furnishing of heat, light, water, or power in any municipality, where there is in operation under an indeterminate permit ... a public utility engaged in similar service, without first securing from the commission a declaration, after a public hearing of all parties interested, that public convenience and necessity require such second public utility. This subsection shall not prevent or impose any condition upon the extension of any telephone toll line from any municipality into or through any municipality for the purpose of connecting with any telephone exchange in such municipality or connecting with any other telephone line or system. (2) Telephones, extension. No public utility ... furnishing telephone service shall install or extend any telephone exchange for furnishing local service ... in any ... town where there is ... a public utility engaged in similar service, without first having served notice in writing upon the commission and ... such other public utility ... of the installation or extension of such exchange which it proposes to make, or make such installation or extensions if the commission, within twenty days after the service of such notice, shall, upon investigation, find and declare that public convenience and necessity do not require the installation or extensions of such exchange. ... Any public utility already engaged in furnishing local service to subscribers within any city or village may extend its exchange within such city or village without the authority of the commission. Any public utility operating any telephone exchange in any city or village shall, on demand, extend its lines to the limits of such city or village for the purposes mentioned and subject to the conditions and requirements prescribed in sections 196.04 and 196.19 subsections (4) and (5). (3) Second utility. ... Any ... permit, license, or franchise which shall contain any term whatsoever interfering with the existence of ... a second public utility is hereby amended in such manner as to permit ... any municipality to grant ... a franchise for the operation of such second public utility.... (4) Municipality restrained. ... No municipality shall hereafter construct any ... public utility where there is in operation under an indeterminate permit... in such municipality a public utility engaged in similar service, without first securing from the commission a declaration, after a public hearing of all parties interested, that public convenience and necessity require such municipal public utility. ... (5) Injunction. Pending investigation and finding by the commission as to whether public convenience and necessity require ... a second utility, the furnishing of any public utility service ... in any municipality contrary to the provisions of this section may be enjoined ... at the suit of the state or of any public utility having an interest therein. The Revisor's note to this section in the original bill (No. 100, S., 1929 session) states: Note: (2) does not apply to cities or villages. Utilities now operate under indeterminate permits; see 196.55; (4) is needless.