Sedona to accept city-owned fiber in exchange for 20-year right-of-way license with WECOM

The Sedona City Council on March 24 approved a 20-year right-of-way license agreement with WECOM LLC under which the company would build a city-owned municipal fiber network and a separate residential network. In exchange the city would waive certain right-of-way and permitting fees up to a modeled credit; the company would build the municipal network and convey ownership of that municipal fiber to Sedona.

Assistant City Attorney Monique Cody introduced WECOM representatives and City IT/engineering staff. WECOM described its proposal to build fiber to more than 5,000 locations in Sedona, including a section of approximately 1,300 homes left out of a prior federal program. WECOM said it won a state grant for the 1,300 homes and will self-fund the balance to complete a citywide build, where feasible. WECOM’s presenter outlined a go-to-market and resident-notification plan and said the company plans to keep operations, splicing and customer service local.

City IT lead Chuck Hardy described the municipal benefits: symmetrical speeds up to 100+ Gbps for city locations, faster backups and a warm failover site to reduce recovery times from 24 hours to minutes, lower latency, and consolidation of video storage and surveillance backhauls. Hardy said the city has estimated total city-fiber install costs at around $4.5 million, valued existing conduit at about $1.32 million, yielding an applied credit against fees of roughly $3.249 million; staff told council the likely annual fees the city would forgo are small compared with that credit over 20 years and that the credit is unlikely to be fully used.

Councilors probed procurement and competitive-access implications. City staff said the license is non-exclusive, other providers could request similar licenses, and that the municipal network would not force the city to use WECOM as its ISP (ownership is transferred to the city). WECOM said typical residential offerings include packages from 500 Mbps up to 5 Gbps symmetrical, with plans to increase to higher tiers later.

Public comment was mixed: Tim Perry criticized the proposal as corporate welfare; business and chamber representatives urged approval for economic development. After discussion, a councilor moved to approve the 20-year license with fees waived equal to WECOM’s cost to install the network, subject to city attorney approval, and the council voted unanimously.

City staff will return with final executed documents and next-step implementation details, including permits, initial construction sections, and timing for handing over the municipal network.