In the CPUC smart meter opt out proceeding, how the utility costs for retaining or restoring analog utility meters will be recovered is a key issue. There are three groups to consider assigning cost allocation: shareholders, socialize them (all customers pay), and/or individuals pay.
We have asserted in our legal filings that shareholders should pay, but we want to know how you feel about socializing the cost and/or splitting it between shareholders and socializing. Please take a minute to answer this quick survey. Thank you!
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You can see pictures of smart meters here: http://emfsafetynetwork.org/?page_id=3653
scroll down to the bottom of the page
Could someone please post a large, detailed picture of what a SMART METER looks like. I have opted out, but it concerns me that like the person commenting above, they may not have removed it and it may still be emitting signals. I also have vision challenges.
Thanks.
Frank,thanks for telling us what hpepans when a customer calls PG&E to opt out.It is your property, so you should do what I did.A few years ago I was doing some construction and asked PG&E for a card so I could read my own meter and put the card out on the front gate for the meter reader.I could not accept the liability of having a meter reader getting hurt by going on to my property to read the meter during construction.This has been working fine for me, and now nobody can access my property unless they are invited or make an appointment with me. You could also put out a sign on your front gate that reads NO SOLICITORS, PEDDLERS OR AGENTS , and keep the gate locked at all times.I will never anyone to install one of those pinche new meters on my property, period.
Thanks for continued activism on EMF safety by network and concerned citizens.
It is horrid that so many analog meters have been taken out when they worked perfectly. What a waste of material and energy right there!
Also, horrid to have the precautionary principle for health and safety so overlooked, as well as the right to privacy at home. My worry: the fact that the government, as well as the world is on a fast track to “smart grids” and have short sighted vision…and that we are fighting an uphill battle. Courage to us! Thanks for persistence.
Has anyone suggested that out-outers read their own meters? Everyone reads their own meters in parts of New Mexico and no doubt other places as well. I have sent a letter to Southern CA Edison offering to post an interest free bond for 1/2 last year’s electric bill, which I would forfeit if they ever found that I had misrepresented the reading. This seems like a more than reasonable alternative to paying their punitive opt-out fees. SCE has not been granted a rate increase, which is essentially what this is, when they fire their meter readers. The Gas Co. has announced that they are installing smart meters too, and want higher opt-out and monthly fees. This is outrageous!
The utility cartel chose to impose unneeded and unwanted harmful wifi smart meters for a scheme designed to provide the cartel ever greater profits while escaping the need to invest in more power generating facilities; it is preposterous to have the CAPTIVE ratepayers burden the cost of the new harmful, unwanted, unneeded meters which have no benefit for them. It has been an appalling oppression at every step as this outrage has occurred.
It is self-evident that this could only occur in the context of a completely CORRUPT CPUC commission. Nothing about this slow-death-meter imposition is reasonable or fair; nor legal in a non-corrupt government-judicial system. The imposition contravenes the rights of the citizens of California and the CA constitution as well as the Mission mandated action for the CPUC commissioners, who have acted as rogue agents for the utility cartel against the hapless citizenry of CA.
Let there be made a compelling record of this cold-blooded assault facilitated by the corrupt-5 psychopaths* who hold and betray the honorable positions-now Dishonored-of the CPUC commission in whom was entrusted protection of the populace, the captive rate payers, from the guaranteed avaricious evil endemic in the monopoly of a necessary commodity.
That is why the CPUC was created to protect the captive rate payers of California and why it’s Mission and mandate is this:
The California Public Utilities Commission serves the public interest by protecting consumers and ensuring the provision of safe, reliable utility service and infrastructure at reasonable rates, with a commitment to environmental enhancement and a healthy California where possible, in the communications, energy, transportation, and water industries.
^
Perhaps the time has come to create the compelling record of these crimes against humanity and especially of the perpetrators and their agents, to hold in trust for a time when Justice shall reign and these scoundrels be called to account for their actions, and no shyster excuses permitted. Let everyone who has knowledge of a perpetrator associated with this mass crime save and protect such knowledge until it
can be safely compiled. Justice is not revenge but a righting of the energy of wrong.
The Wheel of Fortune has not stopped it’s motion.
I have a proposition though I am not the one to make it happen.
It is time to start a Madame DeFarge** Project to embroider a tapestry [knitting is too difficult] to include all the players in this wifi smart meter assault on the people of California; top of the list the shameful and probably psychopath* five commissioners and their predecessors when appropriate; & the judges and politicians who acted wrongly or failed to act rightly. Let the tapestry begin in California; and let it be a model for the GMO Tapestry and the Chemtrail Tapestry and the Fluoridation- Poisoned Drinking Water Tapestry [ where we will see the corrupt-5 names reappear].
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* I use ‘psychopath’ as a technical term not a derogatory term here.
** I am going by memory of the famous character in the novel TALE OF TWO CITIES who knitted the names of the aristocrats who committed crimes against the people and listed their crimes, and awaited the Wheel of Fortune to turn. I suspect she used a code in yarn; embroidery on a stern toned background might better suffice for today. It could be a thiing of awful beauty awaiting the adjustment of Ms Justice’s Scales.
I live in low-cost senior apartments, so we are charged $10 initially, and $5 per month to opt out. I was told by PG&E that the cost is for the meter readers. But they can quickly read a row of 12 meters in a line, which we have here on many buildings. If we all opt out that’s $60 per month per building for a few minutes work on each building. The thievery of the utility company is shameful. They should pay, not us.
Thank you for continuing this ‘common sense’ next step and doing all that you do.
It is dumb to force people to install “smart” meters that emit harmful EMF radiation. Two people I have come acquainted with had the “dumb” meters installed near their apartments and immediately started to go down hill as to their quality of life, quality of their behavior, not getting the sleep they need and getting untrustworthy as their mental abilities became compromised.
No one should be charged to fix the problem. Money doesn’t work. We need to go all the way through the paradigm shift to where we cease leading token existences whether it be money or stock values. The pseudo organizations we currently call governments do not serve people but actually regulate people to serve private profit. Private profit is an illusory insanity. That state of affairs is terminal whether through our finding cogent means of governing or self-destruction.
Utopia/paradise or oblivion. See if you can read the book by Buckminster Fuller or see the film by the Venus Project. All for one and one for all, everything or nothing at all.
The first 101 survey responses have been collected.
88.1 % say shareholders should pay the costs to restore the analog meters.
68% are NOT ok with socializing the cost
59% would NOT be OK with a 50/50 split between shareholders and socializing. (28% are ok)
The following are comments in response to Q 4: Is there anything else you’d like to say about this?
1. Outrageous in the first place to charge for opt-out and/or restoration of analogs.
2. They have installed something harmful to me without my consent. It is their responsibility.
3.I am very upset about the smart meters being installed w/o customers given a chose. The are unsafe and nothing less than wiretapping. I do not want any smart meters.
4.Utility companies should not be allowed to install equipment anywhere that negatively affects the health of people living in the vicinity of that equipment.
5.there should be no cost at all involved since the smart-meter installation was involuntary und so should be the ‘opt-out’ – free of any cost. all occuring costs should be paid by the utility.
6.We pay so much into pge every single person does that they can pay to replace their meters any or any problems with it pge everyone will forever need they should be 100% responsible for their meters
7.Requiring a utility customer to pay for “the benefit” of not having headaches, insomnia, tinnitus, fatigue, nausea, memory and concentration problems, and other disabling, life-compromising conditions or the POTENTIAL of any of above, or DNA breaks, blood-brain barrier breach, stress protein activation from a device that emits radiation classified as a possible human carcinogen is quite blatantly extortionate.
8.I’ve already paid with my tax monies as have every other American taxpayer. My opt-out “Initial fee” just went to $98.00 and &24.00 monthly “fee”. For NON- care SCE utility users the “fees” jumped to $78.00 “initial fee” and $19.00 monthly. These people at SCE and CPUC should be tried on criminal charges. The excues is they “are going into Phase 2 Cost Estimates (note the word “estimates” and Cost Recovery Program”. in other words we once again are being forced to pay more in addition to the billions of dollars in Federal funds and State grants they’ve already received!! They have violated the requiremnents of both the Federal and State rules and laws for receiving taxpayers dollars. CPUC members and utility execs and their are working together on this strong arm Mafia protection extprtion crime. I’ll do without SCE utility before I pay anything more to them. As long as I have the utility turned on I will pay for what I use for my monthly bill. I use it, I’ll pay the bill. BUT no more than that. And if they turn my utility off for not paying their – they do not get paid for what I do not use!! Thankfully, I have a few back up’s in place with this expectation. We can certainly adjust to life without electricity as our foreparents did.
9. If any other product made in China was making tens of thousands of people across the country sick there would be Senate hearings and countless lawsuits. Yet, when governments collude with monopolies/private corporations, the whole justice process stops. The Smart Meter debacle is really at the crux of whether we have a democracy in this country. Basic common sense states that the shareholders must pay for this mistake.
10.Get it done sooner than later!
11.I live in a condo, and am not getting what I am paying for! When my neighbor got a smart meter it contaminated my wiring and I am having problems. PG&E’s rules do not fit condo buildings.
12.Socializing should only be an option if there is 100% undeniable proof that retaining a standard analog meter actually increases the cost of SCE & others to do business. Since that’s the way they’ve done it for the last 100 years, how is it that in 2012 all of a sudden it’s a “burden” for them? Just like all of the banks & CC companies lately, random fees are most likely another avenue for power companies to increase their profit, and coerce users to adopt whatever technology they see fit, regardless of the harm it causes.
13.I heard CPS Energy is REMOVING there smart meters , due to customer claims.
14.Health care costs associated with the damage done by the SMART meters–no worries we have socialized medicine for that. In either case there is going to be a huge price to pay for the damages done. How long did it take before asbestos and lead were determined to be hazardous to our health? How long did it take before the asbestos and lead were removed from our construction materials, gas tanks and paint cans? Over 20 years later people are still embroiled in lawsuits as a result of exposure to asbestos.
15.With our backs against wall, some sort of compromise is probably going to be necessary. However, since this whole fiasco is being jammed down our throats with ultimate disregard for public health and safety, I believe that the utilities should be forced to pay all and return everyone to analog meters which are safe and trustworthy or pursue other technologies that are safe such as fiber optics.
16.I would like to opt out for smart meters but the cost is prohibitive. Not only has the meter given me a headache when I have stood close to it, it has also interfered with other electronics in my home and rendered them useless. The meter was installed a month ago.
17.No one asked for this harmful, intrusive, and destructive technology to be installed. Their (PGE) mistake, they pay.
18.I had opted out of the change to wireless. In spite of that, a technician came when I was away from home, installed the new meter and left me a message. I then locked the cupboard containing the electric meter so that it could not be changed. I had posted signs saying I did not want the change to wireless. I have had to pay $75 to undo the damage. There is a difference, I think, between those who have opted out and been ignored and those who did not opt out but later changed their minds.
19.The ‘utility’ overstepped its bounds to begin with…they and shareholders pay.
20.This was not the rate payers idea but industries so they could lower costs by reducing employees, control load and distribution. Any benefit is not realized by the user but by the supplier so they and those who benefit from this action should pay and they should also pay for any unexpected health problems that develop due to the electromagnetic smog this system will blanket into the communities served.
21. The people who created this system in error should absorb the cost to rectify the situation. People should not be charged to protect themselves from a health hazard. They should never be exposed in the first place. It seems pretty straight-forward to me.
22.why should i have to pay more because you don’t want a smart meter?
23.Smart meters/grid is a huge scam! All reasonable people should REFUSE to pay coerced costs associated with this dangerous, illegal sham!
24.If the power company shoves something down a customer’s throat without informed consent and explicit permission that damages health and puts the property at risk for destruction and fire, they should pay the costs. PERIOD!
25.It was bad business for the utilities to implement this top down program. Utilities must bare the cost whatever it is.
26.Shareholder must pay all!
27. I feel PG&E should be made to pay customers whose rights were trampled on, by having these meters installed as they were. And any fines or fees should not be written off as “cost of doing business!”
28.smart meters is a technology that should not be used anywhere.
29. My neighbors smart meter is closer to our house then our own. So even though we have opted out the neighbors smart meter makes it impossible to opt out. I was told by PG&E that we could talk to the neighbors and offer to pay their monthly costs but we are low income we can barely afford our own. This is not ok.
30.FEE pay for profit for themselves.
31. I think the concept of making people pay anything at all not to have their privacy invaded or their health compromised is extortion. So morally, I only support share holders paying. However, I may be open to a compromise of socialization at 50/50 with shareholders, but not sure as I feel so strongly this is morally corrupt way of bilking funds from the public.
32.The utility company owns the meter, they can do what they want with it.
33. The entity who made the decision to switch t smartmeters for profit purposes without consulting and educating customers about the real cost to them should pay the cost of switching back to analog.
34.This technology has not been proven safe or accurate. It is only in the interest of profit that this PUBLIC UTILITY
35.I am very angry the way PG& E went about installing smartmeters without the consent of customers. I find it outrageous that customers should have to pay to keep their analog meters. Also the loss of jobs of employees and increased profits for shareholders for a public utility seems greed to the nth degree.
36.They put it on without permission. They can pay to take it off
37. If you had a product you liked, and the company changes it without your consent, they are responsible for paying to put it back as was.
38. Where cities and counties said no, there should be no charge to reinstall analogs. Where folks protected their meters there should be no charge to do nothing.
39.We should have a choice if we want these meters or not……..and should NOT have to pay for opting OUT. The $75.00 fee is outragious – don’t mind paying the extra $10.00 per month
40. The cost should be treated like other costs of operating the utility. That they were needlessly incurred just means management made poor decisions. The net profit is reduced, and the shareholders bear the consequences.
41. They slammed them down the customers throat, so they can pay to indemnify.
42. The 12 Smart Meters for my neighbors are attached to my wall or too close to my apt. They are ruining my health. Smart Meters are detrimental to Public Health.
43. If every wireless smartmeter and the smartmeter mesh grid is not removed immediately -Every PG & E executive and shareholder and every member of the CPUC will be criminally charged for intentionally torturing, terrorizing, physically and verbally harassing, bullying, extorting, senior and child abuse and murder of innocent customers.
44. They got Obama funding to pay for the smart meters let them figure out how to get the money to restore the old meters. I have had them replace the smart meter and the new meter still transmits!!! I’m not paying for the change out and they say there turning off the power in 15 days, looks like will see what happens in 15 days.
45. PG$$E and the CPUC are NOT serving the public. They are serving profit, greed, and control, and forget just who gives them the right to serve us. WE, the people, as in the public.
46.Utilities should NOT be for profit. Crony capitalism is at an all time high and the people have to demand an end to it. Why should I pay for something I don’t need or want? My analog is working just fine. Profit is the motive, sickness is just a nuisance. Obama and the stimulus, another form of crony capitalism.
47. The CEO and upper management, those that initiated the smart meter program without the consent of the customers, should pay for it all.
48. Smart Meters are PG&Es idea, it’s their problem, do not make it our problem unless they are invited in!
49. Since PGE started this AGAINST our wishes and with no advance permission given, (and it’s a complete debacle), I can only think that the shareholders should be responsible for any costs incurred in “making things right” with their customers. Since when should we have to pay to protect our health? It’s an outrageous assumption.
50. I didn’t ask for this. If I had, I would be willing to pay. I did not, and rate payers who did not should not have to pay.
51. I fail to see why the customers should pay ANY fees to restore what should never have been taken away in the first place!
52. Everyone is being charged for the purchase of smart meters already, whether we want them or not. Customers who choose analogs should be getting a refund, not charged even more. Customers refuse smart meters to protect their health, safety, and/or privacy. It is a protection racket and extortion to charge customers to keep their analogs, or more precisely, to keep smart meters, and the harm they cause, off their homes. The utilities made the error of getting rid of analogs without customer consent. It’s their mistake to pay for.
53. I didn’t ask for my meter to be changed. I want the analog back, but don’t want to pay for it. Get it done!
54. I don’t think it is fair to make the individuals pay more to retain the same service that they have paid for for years. Customers should be able to have an option as to whether to keep one metering method or the other without being penalized.
55.No Smart Meters. They pose a health rick and are an invasion of one privacy!
56. Need to have the option to opt out free of charge
57. Shareholder are responsible for management’s poor decisions, thus, they should bear costs. An effective manner in which to achieve better administrative performance is shareholder awareness and action.
58.PGE should pay for this. It is to their advantage, really not ours. We, and the employed readers, were fine as it was before the so-called ‘smart’ meters.
59. We have to provide immediate relief via free opt-out and can argue the case about company responsibility in court, at a later date.
60.What was done with the original analogs that were perfectly fine? What would be done with the smart meters when removed? Could they be recycled to recoup some of the costs? The utility companies got subsidized by the government, they made the decision to go wireless when they could have gone fiberoptic, they are reaping huge profits quarterly, they alone should bear the burden even if it puts them out of business completely and we start with a new honest city utility or ? Just some thoughts
61. If the Utility thinks the SM is so great it should pay for it just like it does for all other equipment, trucks, poles, computers telephones etc. Surley the cost to the stockholders for the meters will be much less than the legal liability down the road.
Socializing should only be an option if there is 100% undeniable proof that retaining a standard analog meter actually increases the cost of SCE & others to do business. Since that’s the way they’ve done it for the last 100 years, how is it that in 2012 all of a sudden it’s a “burden” for them? Just like all of the banks & CC companies lately, random fees are most likely another avenue for power companies to increase their profit, and coerce users to adopt whatever technology they see fit, regardless of the harm it causes.
Thank You CPS Energy for stopping the electrocution ! . Since the REMOVAL of your SMART METER, my family’s health immediately improved .Thank you so much, CPS energy, for removing my smart meter within days of making a claim with you. It only took me nine months of complaining of all of my families health problems, to get my smart meter removed. It took for my hospital stay from having a seizure , from your smart meter to GET IT REMOVED!! Finally,no electrifying pulses are running through my vains, and my children can sleep now too.
Socialization of fees? Hah! We have socialized medicine to pay for most of the damages done by these meters. How long did it take before it was realized that asbestos and lead were hazardous to our health? How long was it before asbestos and lead were removed from our construction materials, gas tanks and paint cans? Over 20 years later people are still embroiled in lawsuits as a result of their exposure to asbestos. The cell phone companies already see the writing on the wall; check their shareholder reports. Safe or sorry. To the shareholders for humanity– 1Timothy 6:10
PGE shareholders should be solely responsible for the opt-out/replacement expenses.
Under common law, whoever does something to another person’s property against the owner’s will is the one responsible for restoration. Those therefore responsible for removing an analog meter against the resident’s wishes are the technician (who is “just following orders”), the supervisor who gives him the orders, the entity (corporation) that commands the supervisor, and thus improperly or criminally expends capital to commit the offense. They all should bear the cost of replacing it. If the shareholders feel they have been wronged by this action of improperly removing an analog meter, and then replacing it, they can hold the corporate executives responsible. But that is not our concern. Our concern is holding those responsible for the actual malfeasance of doing something threatening to a resident. Restitution to the resident should go all the way up the command ladder to those who first created direction to act while ignoring the effect on real human beings. If corporations can act in no other way, then they should be dechartered and expunged from the earth.
As soon as I found out about Smartmeters, I called PG&E to opt out but couldn’t…I was put on the last-to-install list. But when I wasn’t home one day, as I work out of my home, they snuck on my property and put one on. Then I heard that I could opt-out last May. I did immediately, was charged the $75 plus $10/month and didn’t pay it until I sold my house and bought another 3 months later…didn’t want to ruin my credit scores or not have PG&E allow the opt-out to be transferred. I’m doing something different as soon as I move plus getting solar panels. So since I never agreed to having my analog taken off in the first place, nor did most others who are conscious of the PG&E policies, it’s up to this corporation to pay for their mistakes, not the consumer. How they chose to do this can be decided by them, within in their corrupt hierarchy. CPUC is just their puppet.
If you’ve had your smart meter replaced check it out and make sure it don’t transmitte anymore, I had my meter replaced but it still transmittes EMF.
This is total BS! The power companies are for-profit corporations. The shareholders make money every time any sort of fees are added. How can the CPUC sit by and do nothing while the power companies cut costs by switching over to the “smart” meters, and then, in addition, pass off more fees to end users!!?
The question of who pays for opt out of smart meters rests on a basic premise of a democracy over which we have fought a revolution – no coersive dictates without a say from the citizens involved. I for one do not remember ever being asked if I wanted a Smart Meter and was willing to pay the consequences. Smart meters do not by themselves save energy, only I can do that and I do. And as far as reading my analog meter, PG&E has sent monthly bills in the past based on estimates of past usage, and can continue that process. In Europe, many are allowed to submit readings of their own meter, which is spot checked by the utilities, which procedure eliminates much of the claimed expense PG&E alleges is necessary to charge customers. They have not responded to my suggestions at all. In short, PG&E does not appear interested in solutions, they appear to want to penalize their customers and make opt out fees another profit center. Their changes, they pay.
We must stand and respond to bullies and hold our paid servants, the CPUC, accountable.
Executives who created the program should pay. Next in line the shareholders. Then all customers. Never the opt-outers.
shareholders get the profit why shouldn’t they pay the cost.