Jefferson County Public Utility District commissioners declined to vote on an “opt out” customer policy for its proposed controversial new smart meters after residents packed a Jan. 16 meeting and continued to question the technology.

Jeff Randall, PUD board president, spoke early and often about how “surprised” he was to see the opt-out item on the Jan. 16 agenda, since he didn’t believe the commissioners were ready to take action on that issue yet.

“I just feel like there’s a lot of unanswered questions left,” said Randall, who echoed the suggestions of customers who recommended consulting with other utility districts to explore more alternatives for metering.

Randall also expressed a preference for holding off on a decision until a new general manager for the PUD is in place, which staff anticipates would happen in April.

PUD Commissioner Kenneth Collins agreed with Randall on setting a target date of May 1 for staff to present findings on how other counties have handled metering.

“We want apples-to-apples comparisons,” Collins said. “I hesitate to make a decision without looking at other factors. Pacific County may be close in size to our own, but it’s my understanding they’ve undergrounded all their services, so they don’t have to pay for the effects of windstorms.”

“And FEMA paid for them to underground their utilities,” PUD Commissioner Wayne King added.

King was the one commissioner out of the trio who was pushing to take action sooner, and he responded to PUD customers’ objections to comments made in a PUD newsletter on the controversial smart meters. The newsletter was mailed to PUD customers with the utility’s January bills.

While Randall and Collins clarified that they’d been afforded the opportunity to preview the newsletter but had declined to do so, King told the crowd that he’d seen and approved of it.

A section in the newsletter on the status of smart meters, written by communications manager Will O’Donnell, read, “And to recap, they won’t spontaneously combust, spy on your toast consumption, or magnetize your pets.”

Customers Tom Thiersch and Joey Pipia deemed the piece’s attempts at humor “offensive” and “insulting” for what they perceived as sarcastic dismissals of their concerns, with Pipia donning a tin foil hat to make light of the idea that critics of the smart meters are merely “conspiracy theorists.”

King countered that those quips were mild compared to the attacks that PUD commissioners and staff routinely receive via email.

“You’re complaining about the financing of the opt-out, but not one of you showed up to our budget meeting,” King said. “Whichever way we decide, 90 percent of you we’ll never see again.”

SUGGESTIONS

Thiersch recommended against naming any specific technology in the opt-out statement, and criticized what he sees as inaccurately broad assertions within the newsletter, such as the statement that meters cannot burst into flames.

Fellow PUD customer Alby Baker went further, accusing the newsletter of outright bias in favor of the smart meters, and speculating that perhaps the Smart Meter Objectors Group (SMOG) should secure space of its own in future newsletters.

Ana Wolpin likewise expanded on Doug Milholland’s expressed concerns about electromagnetic emissions from smart meters, as she worries not only about the potential health impacts, but also about the possibility of customer data being hacked.