>You forgot the trigger warning!
Bro, don't use that phrase.
"The phrase can cause stress about what's to follow. Additionally, one can never know what may or may not trigger a particular person."
Consider using "content note".
> warned that they may have violated the Housing Accountability Act, which says that cities generally can’t deny or downsize housing projects that comply with whatever rules are in place at the time the project application was submitted.
This sounds like a law which states that you can't break the law.
It specifically sets the grandfather date to the project application date - so if I roll into your town and submit a proposal for a building, you can't tomorrow add a "hendrikrassmann law" that requires me to do something additional.
Note that this is NOT the case usually - if you propose a building today and construction starts in 4 years you often have to code-update everything to the construction start date; or even the construction end date. So the law has a purpose.
That doesn't mean it wasn't a state actor, the act itself can be done by anyone but knowing which cables to cut for maximum effect does require knowledge.
Considering it was two cables I wonder if they were part of the same fibre ring. Usually with those if the cable gets cut the traffic can route the other way around the loop. This is why they use rings instead of simple links.
It's because fibre cables are easy to cut by mistake, a digging machine will cut through it without knowing. Unlike the old backbone cables of old that were thick as a sewer pipe and carried thousands of cable pairs and heavy armour.