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pavement located adjacent to the trench where the excavation occurs. The potential for damage to the pavement is magnified when a street is subject to multiple excavations after the street is surfaced or resurfaced and before the next scheduled resurfacing. Additional thickness of asphalt coating is needed to reconstruct a street if it has been subjected to excavations in order to return it to its original strength and quality. Prior to the adoption of this Ordinance, the City Council reviewed all of the foregoing studies, and recognizes and relies upon the experience reflected therein in support of this Ordinance. Copies of these studies are available for public review upon request. The City Council finds that these studies are relevant to the problems addressed by the City in enacting this Ordinance, and more specifically finds that these studies provide convincing evidence of the significant adverse unavoidable effects of excavations on the City's street system. The fee imposed by this Ordinance to be paid to help offset the shortened life of the streets that are cut (the "Trench Cut Fee"), provides an incentive that will encourage utilities to minimize excavations in city streets. The fee will also promote better coordination among utilities making excavations in City streets and between these utilities and the City (i) to minimize the number of excavations being made wherever feasible, and (ii) to ensure that excavations are performed, to the maximum extent possible, in streets scheduled for resurfacing within the same or succeeding fiscal year as the excavation. When an excavation is performed where the Trench Cut Fee is applicable, the entity making and benefiting from the excavation should be required to pay the City a fee that reimburses to the City the value of unavoidably shortened economic life of that street caused by the excavation and the City's increased costs in reconstructing the street, in addition to any other applicable fees or charges. Because the effect of the diminished life caused by excavations decreases with time, the fee should be highest for excavations in newly surfaced streets, and should decrease as the age of the street surface being excavated increases. Requiring the payment of a fee for excavations not undertaken in coordination with the City's resurfacing program will provide an important incentive for utilities to coordinate their excavations with other utilities and with the City's street resurfacing schedule, to avoid excavations in these streets wherever feasible. This Ordinance does not conflict with provisions of State law, including, but not limited to, Sections 7901 and 12808 of the Public Utilities Code related to interstate telecommunication franchises because the fees hereunder are not charged for the same right granted by State law, but, Ordinance No. NS-2480 Page 2 of 7