[Analog – BC Hydro Meter Choices Program – Bill Bennett – Bruce Ralston – Christy Clark – Community Charter / Local Government Act – Daren Sanders – Direction No. 4 Meter Choices Program – EMR – FortisBC Opt-out Fees – Greg Reimer – HB 4220 – Itron – John Horgan – Kevin Diakiw – Lithium Batteries – Microcells / Small Cells – Neptune Water Meters – Ombudsperson – Quinton Talbot – Rep. Gary Glenn – Richard Meltzer – Shaw – Telus – UBCM | BC – Michigan, USA] & (videos)
1) One additional person testifies before the Michigan Committee in support of the Bill to allow maintaining analogs without a fee. Please note the argument against the fee ($5 per month) that is being proposed. BC Hydro and FortisBC are gouging and extorting us, without justification or reporting to us.
http://www.house.mi.gov/MHRPublic/PlayVideoArchive.html?video=ENER-031417.mp4
@ 4:30 minutes:
Rep. Glenn tells what happened to his smart meter during the storm
Also, Glenn explains his math on the issue of cost shifting in favor of opt out
@ 8 minutes:
One witness on smart meters:
Richard (?) Meltzer on the issue of cost shifting, retired PHD researcher, also talks about the transmitter-off meter not being protective
Opt outers receive no benefit but pay
2) Lithium batteries continue to cause fires and injuries, even deaths. Remember that the ITRON smeters on homes in BC have lithium batteries that can explode when they become hot or exposed to water.
Headphones on an airplane: http://globalnews.ca/news/3311234/headphones-explode-on-flight-to-melbourne-australia/
Hoverboard: http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/14/14927234/hoverboard-fire-death-toddler-harrisburg-pa
Phone factory: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/02/09/samsung-factory-made-note-7-batteries-catches-fire/
3) Re. smart water meters. Many communities are requiring each home to have a water meter. A member has been doing a lot of work after being told she had no choice but to allow a Neptune radiation-emitting water meter to be put on or in her home. She asked me to provide the following info to anyone being forced to have a meter on their home:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INDEHZzX-Rw & http://emrabc.ca/?page_id=2695]
1. In BC, no city has jurisdiction to put anything at any place on your property. This is according to the Community Charter, the Local Government Act or statutory law, and has been confirmed by the Ombudsperson.
2. The city must, if you deny access to your property for the purpose of installing a smart meter, install the smart meter on their property at their expense.
3. If you allow the meter on your property (and the city might try to put it at the property line, but on your side of it), you will be responsible for any repairs or maintenance that is required.
4. If the city “gives you a choice” to have the meter inside your home or on the outside of your home, this is not a choice they have jurisdiction to offer. You can refuse to make such a choice but agree to accept a meter so long as it is put on city property. Put this in writing. Do not refuse to accept the meter or else the city might charge a special “fee”. Make it clear that you are merely refusing to allow the meter to be put in your home or any other part of your property.
Many thanks to the member for doing all of this research and for sharing this information.
4) Here is a letter regarding the small cell transmitters that are being put on poles outside homes across BC, encouraging a local newspaper to provide more information to its readers.
http://www.peninsulanewsreview.com/opinion/letters/415797984.html
Letters are important – and we must not become frustrated if they aren’t printed in the media. If enough different people raise the issue, whether it’s to the media or to politicians, we eventually will be heard. If we’re silent, they can assume (erroneously) that we approve. Silence is acquiescence. Please write to your local newspapers, your MLAs, MPs and local Mayor/Council.
Remarks from a member:
“We need to regularly send letters in to both the newspapers and the various municipalities on this topic and related issues. It is best if the letters come from many different names as especially politicians tend to write off the same person with the same concerns. It is especially important to blanket all municipalities between now and September’s UBCM with a variety of radiation issues, especially on wider issues than just the Telus small cell transmitters – Shaw is part of the problem as well as many more including the local business that has chosen to pollute their business with EMR.
The letters do not need to be eloquent – heartfelt is better when it comes to swaying politicians. If we can keep the various concerns on the public agenda, it is more likely any resolution brought forward re EMR will be supported. Remember, the municipal politicians will be preparing for their election campaign for the next municipal elections in 2018 – we need to give them reasons to show they are listening to the people.”
Suggestions from another member:
“I know I can’t tell people how to feel, how to react, or how to write, but I can certainly advise them that if they want to win someone over to their cause, it’s best not to insult them. I try to get my point across by explaining that they too are in the same boat and what is of interest and importance to me, is mostly likely in their best interests, also.
After reading that last outraged letter, I have no doubt that that is one official, or one avenue, where the door has now slammed shut. A well written angry letter, neither contains, nor transmits, anger.
The reason I am now more careful than ever in how I word things, is because I am only too aware that the poor, low-paid sod reading all the incoming volumes is about as powerless as the rest of us on the bottom of the power totem pole.
However, I am also aware that the better I express myself, others do in fact take notice. So here’s to hoping and speaking politely, but no less forcefully, to power.”
Letters:
From: X
Sent: March 14, 2017
To: bill.bennett.MLA@leg.bc.ca; Greg.Reimer@bchydro.com
Cc: john.horgan.MLA@leg.bc.ca; premier@gov.bc.ca; Ralston, Bruce <B.Ralston@leg.bc.ca>; customermetering@bchydro.com; Quinton Talbot <qtalbot@shaw.ca>; Kevin Diakiw – Surrey Leader <kdiakiw@surreyleader.com>; Sharon Noble <dsnoble@shaw.ca>; sunletters@vancouversun.com
Subject: Letter to MLA Bill Bennett and B.C. Hydro regarding Analog meter replacement threats.
Importance: High
To: Hon. Bill Bennett bill.bennett.MLA@leg.bc.ca
To: Greg Reimer Greg.Reimer@bchydro.com
Dear Mr. Bennett and Mr. Reimer,
I am writing to you because on March 14, 2017, I received another notification letter from Mr. Daren Sanders, Senior Manager, Customer Services Operations indicating that B.C. Hydro intends to replace my Analog (legacy) meter with a radio-off meter or a smart meter to which I am totally opposed. This matter has been addressed with B.C. Hydro on a number of occasions previously and I am fed up with B.C. Hydro’s repeated harassment regarding my option to retain an Analog meter at my residence. My current Analog meter was only last replaced on June 13, 2014 and I have not been provided with any documentation indicating that the certification has or is expiring on my current Analog meter. To the best of my knowledge B.C. Hydro still has a stock of Analog meters available, despite their claims that the stock is depleted and secondly, Analog meters are still available on the world market. Therefore, I am requesting that if my current Analog meter has to be replaced it be replaced with another Analog meter.
As you can see by the attached previous documentation with B.C. Hydro I have made my position very clear, yet B.C. Hydro continues to ignore all of my precious correspondence on this matter and continues to issue threatening notices with regard to the replacement of my Analog meter.
https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2013-2017/2013MEM0004-001125.htm
Within the link above from July 18, 2013, you made the following statement by way of press release announcing BC Hydro’s Meter Choices Program: “As we have said, nobody will be forced to take a smart meter. I believe that this is a fair and reasonable solution for all British Colombians.” Based upon this clear statement from you the Minister, I am not to be forced to take a radio off or smart meter regardless of the specific choices B.C. Hydro has made to stop purchasing still available legacy meters and choosing to not re-certify legacy meters. What would be the point of creating a Meter Choices Program that does not retain the full scope of choice from its inception, especially when the program was largely created for those B.C. Hydro customers who do not consent to a smart meter, either radio on or off?
At the time you made the above statements in announcing the Choices Program, thousands of account holders were appeased that we would not be forced to take a smart meter of any type – permanently – and not just to delay a smart meter installation. If you intended to charge us the highest fees in the world, and in BC, to only delay a smart meter installation, you must realize that very few of us would have participated and paid the extra fee if the program was only designed as a smart meter ‘delay’ program. We are paying these extra fees based on your word “that nobody will be forced” to accept a radio-off or smart meter. In my view, based on your word, an offer was made to account holders and a fee is being paid for these services, therefore in my view this is a valid contract between B.C. Hydro and myself and by law, a contract cannot be unilaterally broken.
I need you to reassure me that I will not be forced to take a radio-off or smart meter so I can alert B.C. Hydro that you are to be taken at your word. Otherwise, if your statement was made in deceit that “nobody will be forced” then I and many other customers have wasted our families’ money participating in a program that does not keep to what was clearly stated. I do not see how your very clear statements can be construed as only temporarily true, or have some honest expiry date. If you are to be taken at your word, then B.C. Hydro should be made to stop its threats and find me a legacy meter which are, by their own admission, still in inventory and I know are still in production. In addition, B.C. Hydro should be required to provide me with a certification date on my current Analog meter.
As you are the creator of Directive #4, I require a clear and immediate response on this matter, in view of B.C. Hydro’s latest letter to change my Analog meter and please do not refer me to anyone else as everyone has referred me to you.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Respectfully,
X
Sharon Noble
Director, Coalition to Stop Smart Meters
The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.
~ George Orwell