Memorandum

City of Lawrence

City Manager’s Office

TO:	David L. Corliss, City Manager
FROM:	Diane Stoddard, Assistant City Manager
CC:	Cynthia Boecker, Assistant City Manager Toni Wheeler, Director of the Legal Department
Date:	July 29, 2009
RE:	Lawrence Freenet, Inc. Agreements with the City of Lawrence

As you are aware, staff is responding to a request from Community Wireless Communications to have a video service provider agreement with the City.  As part of this analysis, Staff was requested to prepare an anthology/chronology of the agreements that the City has with Lawrence Freenet, Inc., a non-profit company.  Attached is a memo from Toni Wheeler, Director of the Legal Department, providing this listing and summarizing the agreements. Additionally, it should be noted that the City does not have any agreements with Community Wireless Communications (CWC), a for-profit company, at the current time. 

The City recently received the attached letter from CWC regarding Freenet’s equipment in the right-of-way at 23^rd and Harper, which was the subject of the City’s most recent agreement with Freenet, in April 2009.  In the letter, CWC indicates that Freenet’s equipment in the right-of-way at 23^rd & Harper is now under the franchise granted to CWC.  Staff is concerned that 1) the agreement with Freenet allowing them to be in the right-of-way at the Harper location has a specific provision making it unable to assign the agreement to CWC or any other party; and 2) the City Commission granted Freenet’s presence in the right-of-way at no cost due to its not-for-profit status when the City had charged for-profit companies fees for such rights previously.