Get to Know the Joint Use and Permits Team

The Joint Use and Permits department is a smaller team, but it makes a huge impact for the Snohomish County PUD.

The group makes sure everything attached to our poles is approved. They manage more than 40 third-party contracts with about 89,000 attachments for our poles, including communications and pole-top attachments from companies such as Ziply, Comcast and cell phone providers.

But that’s just the start! The group makes sure everything is in compliance, serves as a central point of coordination between internal groups, and helps Team PUD with Right-of-Way (ROW) permit applications.

And if that all wasn’t enough, Joint Use and Permits brings in millions of dollars annually from contracts enacted with other companies to use our poles.

“My favorite part is the problem solving,” said Lead Joint Use & Permits Specialist Beth Haskin. “Every day presents a new problem we haven’t seen before. We don’t always know the answer right away, but we’ll figure it out.”

“There’s never a dull moment in Joint Use,” added Kirsten McCarthy, a Joint Use & Permits Coordinator.

The PUD is required to send a Joint Pole Notification (JPN) to anyone that has attachments to our poles. This includes all replacements, removals and new pole installations.

Ziply, for example, is joint owner on approximately 52% of our 147,000 poles.  Last year, the Joint Use and Permitting group had a record year with 1,447 JPN’s and 1,438 ROW permits processed.

The group processed an additional 809 JPNs and had 1,226 permits processed in 2024.

“It’s a smaller group that accomplishes a lot,” Andra Flaherty, PUD Senior Manager of Transmission & Distribution Engineering Design. “They had a record year. They do so much for the PUD behind the scenes, but it’s so vital to everything we touch. If they aren’t doing their job, you’re going to notice. But because they do it so well, things keep humming along. They’re small, but mighty.”

“They are a dependable and often unsung team whose work is essential to the success of nearly all our projects,” said Professional Engineer Aziz Haq. “We sincerely appreciate Moe and her team for their consistent support and for helping make the permit application and JPN processes run smoothly.”

The team of seven has four folks specifically for joint-use functions, including one engineer and a lead, and can receive upwards of 800 emails per week.

Engineer Ron Barton works with his team on all cable applications submitted to the PUD. He reviews the applications and ensures the pole is compliant before the attacher has the approval to attach. Last year there were 304 applications and over 3,000 poles were approved.

“Our joint use team plays a vital role in keeping projects on track while maintaining the highest standards of safety and compliance,” Ron said. “Through strong coordination with our partners and internal teams, we help ensure our infrastructure remains reliable, organized and built for long-term success.”

“It all flows down to our group,” said Moe Matthews, Joint Use and Permits Manager. “There has been a lot of work. When there are problems, we are really good private investigators and able to find out what happened. But that can take a lot of time.”

The Joint Use and Permits team is a critical part of Team PUD – and works with groups across the utility.

“They’re small, but mighty.”

“The best part is that we’re a small department but get to work with so many other groups,” said Lira Wolfe, a Joint Use & Permits Coordinator. “Customer Service, GIS, Maps and Records, Legal, Accounting, Risk, Communications, Engineering, Standards, Real Estate, Crew Dispatch, Vegetation Management, Telecom and Substation – a lot of great groups! We facilitate a variety of processes with these workgroups which allows us to interact with different people every day.”

The team enjoys getting to be a small part of big, community-changing projects, like the recent work along 196th Street in Lynnwood to widen sidewalks and move poles that’s been in the process for over a decade.

“Watching the 196th Street transformation, and being a part of that change, is the coolest thing,” said Joint Use & Permits Coordinator Emily Myers. “I played a small part, but it is a change I can see in my own neighborhood.”

Customer inquiries can also be forwarded to Joint Use. The team tries to respond to every request, whether from an internal or external customer, within 24 hours.

“When I think of Joint Use, the term ‘jack of all trades’ always pops up because we wear many hats,” said Shaina Crisostomo, a Joint Use & Permits Coordinator at the PUD. “You learn something new all the time, or a new scenario pops up and I think that’s fun! The variety makes you feel like you’re not doing the same thing all the time, which I truly enjoy.”