Robert Power has been fighting an uphill battle. A Point Loma resident who lives on Hill Street, Power wants the utility pole in front of his home eliminated, as promised in past agreements between the city and the utility companies to place unsightly utility wires underground.
Some of these agreements date back to 1967, according to city officials.
Several years ago, SDG&E and Cox Communications placed their utility wires in the area underground.
While all companies are required to do so in certain areas, Power said some wires owned by communications giant AT&T remain.
But though Power has demanded answers from city officials and AT&T representatives, he has so far had little luck getting that pole removed, he said.
“If they [AT&T] say they’re going to do something and then don’t do it, well, OK, now what?” he said. “[The poles] should go.”
Power said representatives from AT&T told him that it would be too expensive for them to underground the wires and remove the poles.
According to Nathan Bruner, underground utilities manager for the city, Hill Street qualifies for undergrounding, and all the wires on Hill Street have been or are scheduled to go underground.
For a street to qualify, it must satisfy certain criteria. One criterion is that the street with underground wires provides a “public benefit,” Bruner said.
A scenic route or a highly trafficked street with underground wires would satisfy the “public benefit” criterion, he said.
The City Council decides which streets are targeted for such a project, he said.
While all the poles on Hill Street qualify, the one in front of Power’s home has wires that stem from the pole up alongside a hill to service another area, Bruner said.
AT&T preferred to leave the pole where it is because the wire serves an area that is otherwise hard to reach, Bruner said.
“AT&T initially told him, ‘We’re not going to do it,'” Bruner said. “So now we’re looking at it a little bit closer [from the city’s standpoint].”
Bruner said that he has been working with AT&T engineers to possibly reroute the services and remove the pole.