Claremore residents gather to discuss electric bills
Reprinted with permission from the Claremore Progress. This article originally appeared on Jun 21, 2016. Support local journalism with a subscription or a day pass for $1.99 :)
More than 70 Claremore residents attended a community meeting Thursday night to discuss concerns over electric and utility costs in Claremore.
“I am not a complainer. I just want information. My main concern is what can we do as a community to fix this, not to complain and cause problems, but what can we really do that will legitimately help. There are elderly residents who have to make tough choices between paying their utilities and buying groceries,” said Claremore resident Bonnie Kellehan.
Kellehan said she also rents property to residents in Claremore and is concerned about her business if her tenants cannot afford utilities.
“We live in Claremore, we are going to support Claremore and we are going to start this business. We have renters who sometimes cannot pay their rent because of their high utility bills and if our business is not profitable we have to try to sell this property. If the word gets out that nobody can afford utilities in Claremore, then we cannot sell those properties,” said Kellehan.
Patrick Abitbol, an attorney in Claremore, said he is concerned about how the utilities effect business’ decision to move to Claremore.
“Businesses coming to town could factor in their air conditioning bills and decide it is cheaper to be in Owasso than Claremore. There are a lot of aspects and it affects all of us to a significant degree,” said Abitbol.
Another resident, Tanya Kinsey, said she has seen a recent increase — starting two months ago — on her electric bill, but she also said she wants to know more about the power “blinks” in the city, which do not seem to be getting better.
“A week ago Tuesday night we had a lasagna we were trying to cook in the oven. During one hour the electricity went off five or six times and we could never get the lasagna to cook because we could not get the electricity to stay on long enough to cook it right,” said Kinsey. “We cannot even keep the clocks on our ovens or microwaves set because they always resetting because of the surges.”
Some residents at the meeting are concerned that smart meters are the cause of the recent increases, and many say they have noticed increases since the installation of the new meters, which began one year ago.
“The problem with the old meters is they had a spiral aluminum wheel, they did not have the ability to measure instantaneous peaks because of the inertia of the wheel. With the new meters there are no moving parts, so they can take a microsecond and measure it, and they were not able to measure that before,” said David Williams, a Claremore resident and electrical engineer who attended the meeting.
The city received proposals from General Electric for the new smart meters in 2013, and the city council began discussions on the new meters. In July 2013, the Claremore Progress reported the city council and Claremore Public Works Authority Director Larry Hughes discussed potential savings and revenues that would result from new meter installations.
While the estimated cost of renting the meters from GE is $80,000 a month, GE representatives said, “the city could save $400,000 annually through a reduction in workforce, fuel expenses, vehicle maintenance and other operational costs.”
In addition, the new systems “would accurately record all usage for both residential and business consumers. This means the city will see an increase in revenue, offsetting the cost of the monthly fee,” according to GE representatives.
“The new meters are nearly 100 percent accurate and the city would see an increase in revenue offsetting the monthly fee to GE,” Hughes said in a city council meeting in August 2013, according to Claremore Progress reports.
Recently, Hughes said while many people take to social media to voice their concerns, few have visited the utility office to look at the data and try to discover the cause of their problem and determine solutions.
Hughes said the first step for residents concerned they are charged for unused electricity is to turn off the main breaker to the home. After a few minutes the three dots located below the “kWh” reading located on the smart meter should stop moving, he said — if not, there could be a wiring problem or another problem on the property that may or may not be related to the meter.
The second step is to call the utility office to send a worker to inspect the meter and the wires on the meter. Residents who tamper with the smart meter or wires on the smart meter box will be charged a $575 fine.
Normally, residents pay a $20 fee for a meter test if the meter tests accurate. Currently, Claremore Public Works Authority is not charging the fee for meter tests, even if the test is accurate. Residents need to go to the utility office to fill out a form to request a meter test.
Claremore resident Shelly Taylor, who said she has recently received electric bills between $800 and $1,500, organized the community meeting.
“I have so much feedback on the Facebook page, so I already anticipated the concerns of the community would voice, it was a good meeting,” said Taylor.
Taylor will be speaking at the city council meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 8 at 6 p.m.