MARIN COUNTY and Fairfax have the right to regulate "smart" meters and their accompanying infrastructure in the local rights of way. These are publicly owned lands that are the constitutional domain of local government bodies whose representatives are democratically elected by residents. Further, local governments have binding franchise agreements with utilities under which they reserve regulatory authority. Utilities, no matter how big or powerful, are obligated to follow local rules and ordinances when installing equipment in public rights of way. Residents have the constitutional right to urge and support local legislators to create laws that protect public health and safety from activities that may be injurious to health or property. A majority of elected officials in Marin and Fairfax passed legislation intended to regulate their rights of way from a project that many feel endangers public health and property. The court, not the sheriff or the district attorney, who in fact have taken an oath of office to enforce the law, determines whether those ordinances are valid. The smart meter program should have been an "opt-in" program from the start, and should still be that in jurisdictions that have outlawed them. People have the right to retain their analog meters at no extra charge and nobody should be forced to have a smart meter for any reason. People have good reasons for wanting to keep their
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analog meters: safety, security, and privacy (not handing over private information that PG&E will then sell). Those who would like to have a smart meter could choose to opt-in to having a wired smart meter so there is no radio-frequency signal to affect neighbors. This is how they are doing it in Germany. Citizens there are given the choice to have a smart meter. If they elect to have one, the meter is wired through DSL cable lines. The federal government and the California Public Utilities Commission never mandated that smart meters be wireless. This type of technology is notoriously cheap, insecure, hackable and just plain doesn’t work well. Living in California, known for cutting edge technology, it would seem more appropriate to go with the newest, fastest thing available when forming a "smart" grid — fiber optic. But PG&E doesn’t want to spend the money. Instead, the wireless smart meter is not only seriously flawed, but becomes invasive as it affects others who do not want the RF microwave radiation crisscrossing through their homes inside PG&E’s wireless smart grid "mesh network." The reality of a mesh network and its effects on entire neighborhoods has been consistently downplayed by PG&E and does not seem to be understood in the IJ’s recent editorial about Fairfax and SmartMeters. In order to avoid subjecting people to a mesh-network of unwanted, harmful radiation, it would be simple just to have a wired smart meter for those who choose to opt-in. Before 8 million smart meters were deployed in California, it seems the more rational and business-savvy thing would have been for PG&E to look beyond its immediate bottom line and invest in fiber optic cable. After all, it was in Italy that President Michael Peevey (of the CPUC), on a trip with industry executives, first learned about the smart grid. Only there, they use fiber optic, not radio-frequency microwave radiation. Lastly, charging fees for opting-out of a wireless smart meter is backward and doesn’t make sense. It penalizes residents who have a medical condition that makes them sensitive to RF and violates the rights of local jurisdictions in making decisions based on their constituents’ values, health, and safety. If we allow PG&E to put RF emitting, data-gathering devices on our homes without our or our local government’s permission, then what’s next? read more : http://www.cnfiberoptics.com
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