City officials and a Tallahassee-based company contacted Ocala-News.com to ask for a retraction and correction of a story about comments made by the Ocala City Council regarding the messy installation of fiber optic cables by state crews in parts of Ocala.
In question is the characterization that some may infer from this article, which states that third-party subcontractors are tearing up yards to install “fiber optic cables.”
The main point of concern is that it paints the Ocala Fiber Network as the culprit, when in fact, the work is 1) unrelated to the group’s cause, or 2) not being done by city or OFN workers.
We were contacted by the city’s public relations officer and, furthermore, by a company that was contracted by OFN to perform conduit installation services requesting a retraction and correction.
Both indicated that the ongoing fiber optic installations are being conducted by “private fiber optic companies that have the right to install their infrastructure” and are not “part of the Ocala Fiber Network.”
Ocala-News.com is committed to transparency and fairness for our readers.
To that end, we transcribed every one of the 1,390 words from the conversation that the city had about this topic last week.
Here’s the entire 1,390-word transcript:
Barry Mansfield: “So I’ve had bunch of complaints in the downtown area about all the vendors coming in, putting in all the conduit for, whether its cable, whether its Internet, fiber. I don’t know what it is, but, obviously, everybody can drive around and you see all the poles sticking out every place. Well, this week and I’m gonna say kudos to our office too, and I’ll tell you why. So I’ve had several calls. I mean, they’ve hit water lines. They’ve hit gas lines. They’ve hit, you know, and they just tear up the front of the people’s yards. And then they try to put back in, Bahia sod, which is a DOT, but not in that area because it’s just, you know, there’s, you know, everybody has you know, St. Augustine, or you know, something like that. Plus, this week, they hit a sewer line on a lady’s house and they had called me and sent me the pictures and it backed up the whole house.”
Council President Kristen Dreyer: “Do they not do call before you dig?”
City Engineer Sean Lanier: “They do.”
Mansfield: “See, again, it goes back a little earlier what we were talking about – it’s a subcontractor of a vendor. So even the people that we’re giving the permits to are not the people that are doing the digging. They’ve actually subbed all the work out. And so, who has the responsibility? And at some point in time, do we have any kind of say what goes in there or any kind of intervention of ‘Hey guys, no. You can’t dig there.’ Or ‘No, you need to do a better job.’ So and it’s something I’ve had a lot of calls on. And I’m sure I think everybody…”
Councilmember James Hilty, Sr. – “I haven’t had anything like that yet.”
Mansfield: “Well I have, so anyhow, it’s something I’d like to address. And again, kudos to the one lady. It really messed her house up. I mean and she had a lot of damage. And we stepped up to the plate. But the city of Ocala, technically, you know, we’ve got to come back and look at how are we gonna get our money back? Because it wasn’t our fault. It wasn’t our guys’ fault that did that.”
Lanier: “Fiber optic is the main culprit.”
Mansfield: “Yes.”
Lanier: “We can’t tell them they can’t put utilities in the right of way. There’s a state statute and federal statutes that basically passed, I think, three or four years ago, and now they’re all wanting to put it and hang it – and do everything with our electric lines above, as well as all this boring in the right of way. We have a right-of-way permit process and what we’re looking at is how we can make that more stringent and tighter, which would help some of this process. In other words, they have to prove to us that they’re gonna miss all these utilities and do due diligence before they do it rather than go out there, call for locates, and then just start boring.”
Mansfield: “You know, some of this, we need to have some kind of supervision that they pay for. You know, we need to somehow have a project manager just for this. And that’s And, again, they need to pay for it.”
Lanier: “That’s not covered. What we’re gonna, what I was gonna look at as part of that process, looking at the the teeth that we have in the right-of-way. We have may to look at our ordinance and then because like code enforcement can go out there and do stuff. Engineering will go out there but then what enforcement authority do we have as far as if they’re not doing something right, we can revoke the permit and then if they don’t stop their work, you know, then what? So that’s some questions we’re gonna have to explore with the city attorney, see if we need to, shore it up with an ordinance and then the other thing that we’re gonna look at, he talked about their subs. We’re definitely gonna add that when they are issued a permit that they also have to list every sub they’re using. There’s some of them that have 10 subs out there doing the actual boring, but the permit is under one parent, fiber company. So we’re working on it.”
Ocala City Manager Pete Lee: “Sean, can we limit the size of conduits? Is that possible?”
Lanier: “Limiting the size of the conduits?”
Lee: “Yeah, so like the diameter of…”
Lanier: Not, not really. No. I mean, it’s, think of it like TECO Gas. They’re another one that show the right of way. But they actually do a very good job of going out in what’s called ‘geo exploration.’ They go out, they call in locates, design locates, and then they’ll go out and actually GPR and look for all the utilities and conflicts in the way. And I’ve seen them out there in the right of way, and this is before they come in and put the line in. That’s what we need versus what’s being done. And so that’s kind of where I’m going with that. And they have, they have large lines.”
Mansfield: “I just think somehow it’s got to have something with teeth because it’s again, they’re building on our property, the city of Ocala. And that’s our property and they need to do a good job. They need to have some kind of supervision because they’re not paying attention or they don’t necessarily care.”
Lanier: “So the things that aren’t addressed or if they’re working in somebody’s yard and they have sod and they have landscaping and the right of way. They’ve got irrigation, other things they’ve addressed. Now, some of them have come back and supposedly fixed the irrigation. We had a couple recent stuff. So, each company is different but I’m not sure what, again, what enforcement authority we have for them to accommodate ‘Hey, you tore out whatever landscaping, Saint Augustine Grass, you need to go back with the like for like and restore the individual’s yard. Even though it’s in the right-of-way, they’re still maintaining it and it’s still theirs. So that’s something we have to address.
Dreyer: “I have a question based on your question. When they close roads, are they submitting a traffic plan to you?”
Lanier: “Yes, they have an MOT [Maintenance of Traffic] plan that they submit as part of the right-of-way permit. Most of the time they’re following FDOT [Florida Department of Transportation] index for the MOT. Now, when they’re not doing something right, we’ll get a call and somebody from engineering will go out there and if they’re not in compliance, like their MOT is wrong, we’ll have them correct it.”
Dreyer: “So, I personally – they close roads at night, which we appreciate, because we don’t want them doing it during the day, but it’s a total clown show. And I know that nobody in your department, or in this city, would ever have signed off on the stuff that they’ve done. I mean, just full road closures. Like you can’t even drive down this road if you wanted to-“
Lanier: “With no detour.”
Dreyer: “-With no detour. And, no flag – like it’s, it makes no sense. So, I guess it would just be us when we see it reporting it to you, saying, like we need to look into this because it’s not okay-“
Lanier: “Yes, ma’am.”
Dreyer: “-So we’ll look into what the enforcement is and then – I mean you deal with contracts with subcontractors all the time. It’s the initial permit holder really that’s responsible and they have to police their subcontractors, no?”
Mansfield: “You’re correct, we have teeth. And on my contracts I give, that’s just it, we’ve got them teeth. Even with the contracts I’ve signed, if I’ve signed a contract with the city of Ocala we just went through that, you have some teeth to where, you know, if you’re not happy with me-“
Dreyer: “You can definitely tell where they have been, because it looks like garbage. I mean it’s all dug up rocks, they’ve not replaced sod, sidewalks – it’s – I’m trying not to curse. It looks bad.”