Background

On April 6, 2011, Central Valley Telecom, LLC (CVT or Applicant) filed an application with the California Public Utilities Commission (Commission) for a certificate of public convenience and necessity (CPCN) to provide resold and facilities-based local exchange telecommunications services in the service territories of Pacific Bell Telephone Company dba AT&T California (AT&T), Citizens Telecommunications Company of California, Inc./Citizens Communications Company dba Frontier Communications of California (Frontier), SureWest Telephone/SureWest Communications (SureWest) and Verizon California Inc. (Verizon) and resold and facilities-based intrastate interexchange telecommunications services on a statewide basis. The Applicant is a California corporation. Its principal address is 1346 North Floyd Avenue, Fresno, California 93722.

The assigned Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) emailed CVT on May 19, 2011, requesting additional information from CVT. In response, Applicant filed an amendment to its Application on May 25, 2011, revising its application from one seeking authority to engage in California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) exempt construction consistent with Commission Decision (D.) 10-12-056¹ to one seeking authority to use an expedited 21-day review process for projects that are potentially exempt from CEQA. The assigned ALJ issued a Ruling on May 31, 2011 limiting the protest period for the amended document. No protests to the amendment were filed.

¹ On December, 16, 2010, the Commission adopted General Order (GO) 170 in D.10-12-056. GO 170 implements the Commission's responsibilities pursuant to CEQA to review possible environmental impacts of construction projects consisting of any new telephone or telegraph line; or the repair, replacement, modification, alteration, or addition to an existing telephone or telegraph line in the State of California. On January 24, 2011, the League of California Cities, the California State Association of Counties and SCAN NATOA, Inc. (Cities), and AT&T California, Frontier, SureWest, and small local exchange carriers (LECs) (collectively, "Joint Carriers") filed applications for rehearing of D.10-12-056. On the same day, the Cities also filed a motion for immediate stay of D.10-12-056, pending resolution of the applications. On May 26, 2011, the Commission approved D.11-05-050, granting the Cities' motion for stay.