At the Aug. 4 Junction work session, staff asked the City Council to place a first amendment to the license agreement with MCI Metro Access Transmission Service Corp. on the consent agenda for approval, extending the city’s existing right-of-way fiber agreement for an additional five years. The amendment would continue MCI Metro’s authority to install and maintain fiber optic cable in city rights-of-way.

The request was presented by a staff member who said the amendment is "fairly straightforward" and asked the council to consider it on the next consent agenda. The staff member noted the amendment comes at the end of the five-year initial period of the original agreement.

Joel Lehi, who worked on the negotiation, told the council the delay in bringing the amendment forward was caused by the licensee, not by city staff. He said the company had outstanding compliance issues from earlier in the contract term, including an unpaid $3,000 application fee from 2020 and disagreements about the form of financial security. Lehi said the company could not provide the local letter-of-credit the city preferred, so the parties increased a bond amount instead. "We are happy with how this turned out," Lehi said.

Doug Wirth, the city’s IT director, was identified by staff as available to answer technical questions but did not speak on record during the work session.

No formal motion or vote was taken at the work session; staff requested the council place the amendment on the upcoming consent agenda for formal action at a regular meeting. The presentation did not include a proposed ordinance number, dollar amount, or contract number for the amendment in the material presented at the work session.