No sooner had the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC)
granted customers the choice of opting-out of the
SmartMeter program, then PG&E told its customers they
would have to pay an up front fee and a monthly charge if
they chose to Opt-Out. We at Burbank Heights & Orchards in
Sebastopol are circulating the following petition. We hope,
if you agree with us, that you will let the CPUC know.
We, the undersigned, are residents of Burbank Heights &
Orchards (BH&O), 7777 Bodega Avenue, Sebastopol, CA 95472.
We address our following petition to the California Public
Utilities Commission. We are very concerned about three
matters regarding the opt-out program for PG&E SmartMeters:
Opt-out fees, misrepresented as already set in stone in
letters and phone calls from PG&E; no SmartMeters at
multiple-dwelling complexes; and long overdue hearings on
the health and safety risks of SmartMeters.
The penalty charges for those of us who chose to opt-out are
unjust. (In a petition campaign held in August 2010, 83% of
BH&O residents chose to Opt-Out. You received copies of our
petitions.) How can we be charged for the removal of
SmartMeters that have never been installed in the first
place, and for the removal of SmartMeters installed without
permission? Of the 16 apartment buildings at BH&O only one
building, N, has had SmartMeters installed. There are also
two SmartMeters (gas and electric) installed on apartment
G1. No one knows when these were installed, but we believe
it was sometime in early 2010.
There are no other SmartMeters installed at BH&O. We should
not have to pay $75 per customer to have them “removed”, nor
do we think the monthly charge of $10 for opting out is at
all fair or realistic. That PG&E expects to be reimbursed a
total of $2,000 for reading once a month some 400 meters
concentrated in banks on our 16 buildings is unconscionable
. The new charges seem exorbitant and unfair. We already
pay the base rates that have provided meter readers and
other basic services like repairs. We are opposed to the new
charges and urge the CPUC to disallow them.
The scatter-shot installation of SmartMeters at multiple
dwellings such as BH&O is folly. Here the meters are in
banks (a minimum of 24 meters for buildings with 12
apartments and a minimum of 12 for buildings with six
apartments). These banks of meters constitute a wall of
Electro Magnetic Frequency (EMF) fields on each building and
are adjacent to someone’s bedroom in each building.
Installing SmartMeters will increase the EMFs throughout
the entire complex to an alarming amount. As with all other
matters SmartMeter, the multiple-dwelling EMF problem has
not even been addressed.
It appears that the health and safety issues of
multiple-dwelling EMF have not ever been addressed. The time
has come to do so because until those matters have been
ascertained, we respectfully decline to be made guinea pigs
for PG&E's profit.
As an elder community we are alarmed at and opposed to the
installation of Smart-Meters in our senior apartment
complex and believe that the CPUC needs to protect us by
disallowing both their installation and the imposition of
new fees.
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