Town hall focuses on smart meter concerns

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 :)

Approximately 50 residents participated in a town hall meeting to discuss smart meters and utility bills Monday night at the Claremore Conference Center.

Some city utility customers have complained about increases in their electric bills, voicing concern that smart meters installed recently are not providing accurate readings. Monday’s meeting saw discussion of the smart meter system, as well as various other aspects of the city’s delivery of electric service to customers.

Claremore City Manager Jim Thomas announced during the meeting that there will be a fee for those opting out of the new smart meter system — $30 a month.

“We have approximately 10,500 individual residential units. We are going to allow that option but not without a cost. There will be a fee assessed to every homeowner, because we have to send someone out to the home to read the meter physically, both the water and electric,” Thomas said.

The fee will go into effect on Jan. 1. Currently, fewer than 60 residents are on the opt-out list.

“So those 60 people are not all in a row. Claremore is 15 square miles. It is not fair for those 50 to be subsidized by the 10,450,” said Thomas. “When we were looking at 10 people who wanted to opt out, it was going to be $50. The fewer people that opt out the higher the cost will be.”

Opt-out fees are common among utility companies. Public Service Co. of Oklahoma, which services Tulsa and other surrounding areas, offers an opt-out option that includes an initial, one-time fee of $183 and a $28 per month fee.

Claremore’s municipal utility department, which delivers electricity to city residents, will not charge an initial one-time fee.

The city’s frequent power outages were also discussed. One resident, Amy Pinkerton, voiced concern during the meeting about regular “blinks.”

“I work from home. I work off of the Internet, and I rely on Claremore to have reliable services. I lose my power every single day. You are raising my rates and I do not have reliable service. Please don’t tell me the squirrels are to blame,” Pinkerton said.

Thomas said that though electricity infrastructure does need to be upgraded, the squirrels are a big problem.

“I was like you about the squirrels. They showed me dead squirrels that caused a major blackout in the city. They called me on a Saturday, I went out and I saw some crispy critters. They can do some major damage,” Thomas said.

Thomas said past city administrations are in part to blame for the current electric rate Claremore residents are charged.

“There has been past administration that have not invested in the infrastructure,” Thomas said.

Pinkerton also said that there is a lack of communication between the city and residents. “There is a wall and we as citizens are banging our heads against that wall because we are getting lip service. We are told what you think we want to hear and there is no resolution,” she said.

Thomas said the city had over-relied on the press to distribute messages to residents.

“We made the assumption that the TV networks and the print media was reaching everybody. We are going to do a better job of communicating,” he said.

Many residents present Monday questioned the increase they saw on their most recent bills.

“Our electric bills have increased from the time the smart meters have gone in. What is the city doing to look into our concerns to make sure that this is not a problem?” asked Cheryl Kelly.

Thomas said residents can call or visit the utility department and that an analysis can be performed on anyone’s utility account.

Claremore’s new smart meters are owned and operated by General Electric and leased by the city.

According to General Electric representative Chris Boyd, the smart meter project is a multi-year, multi-phase project. He said the city utility office has access to hourly reads for customers’ homes. The information can be accessed by contacting the utility office.

“I have asked, asked and asked for the information, and you are saying that information is available — it is just not available to us at the moment,” said Claremore resident Scott Durham.

Durham said he was told the only data available until a new online customer portal is completed is for consumption within a 24-hour period. The portal is expected to be completed early next year.

“I want data. I want to know when rates are going to come down because you have been working so hard to put things in place,” said Durham.

Thomas said, “There is a need for many millions dollars worth of infrastructure improvements. I do not see the rates coming down until the infrastructure is brought up.”

Thomas said a 4.02 percent increase from Grand River Dam Authority, which supplies power to the city, will be effective Jan. 1. He said the city has not made an internal decision on whether the full four percent increase will be passed on to Claremore utility customers.

The increase means the city will be charged an extra $642,000 next year by GRDA.

“I am doing everything possible to deal with bad decisions that have been made in this city. I have worked night and day on economic development, on train issues, on transportation issues, on new infrastructure, and I will do it as long as they ask me to be the city manager,” Thomas said.

Several residents said they are still looking for answers for why their bills have increased.

“Most of what I got is how high of a rate we are paying, and it is the past administrations’ fault, but it will never go down. It is not going to get better,” Durham said.

“At least we have a date of the first of the year of when the software will be available to the citizens for better monitoring of our electric use.”