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Council Tosses Sedona Under Tax Revenue Bus

smart metersSedona AZ (February 26, 2014)The following is a letter to the SedonaEye.com editor:

Last week the tremendous turnout to the City Council’s meeting on smart meters sent a clear message to the Council: we don’t want smart meters here in Sedona. Whether or not the Council heeds the will of the people remains to be seen. Some are not convinced that the radio-frequencies of the smart meters pose any health risks, though there is overwhelming evidence that states otherwise. At least two spokespeople at the meeting shared their experiences of ill health due to the meters. Smart meters are due to be installed in Sedona beginning on March 31, so the Council has little time to act.

At the start of the meeting an independent advisor (I couldn’t hear who he was or what firm he represented) outlined some options for the Council. Some of which included legal action to stop the installation, but he intimated any such action would be expensive. He didn’t want to discuss this further except in executive session, from which the public would be excluded and would have no input.

When I wrote the Council to suggest writing and enforcing city ordinances prohibiting smart meters like those in Fairfax, CA that proved effective, one member wrote back that it would be too expensive, something like “the city doesn’t have the money.” I found this to be a specious and misleading argument, since the City is increasing our wastewater rates 4% for the next 6 years while decreasing its subsidies to the fund; so it can eventually have an extra $9 million. Apparently the City would rather spend the money on its misbegotten community plan or splash parks for kids, rather than protect the health of its citizens whose average age is 57. Moreover, for those who disregard the health risks, the City stands to make money on the installation of smart meters, whose digital accounting more accurately amps up the usage of electricity and creates higher bills that generate higher tax revenues for the City. More money for the community plan.

Sedona City Council

Sedona City Council

The most feasible option in the short term offered by the advisor was to negotiate with APS a delay in the installation of smart meters until the ACC-commissioned health study is completed at the end of the year. (The ACC is being negligent, if not complicit, in allowing APS to install any meters at all before that time.) This would give the City time to write and test out legal actions barring smart meters. But my guess is the Council may only negotiate the delay, but won’t follow through with the legal actions, even though we already have a nuisance ordinance on the books that could be applied to APS. The Council will placate the opposition for the time being, especially since some members are hoping to be re-elected this fall. By then the Council hopes the brouhaha will die down and people will forget their health is in jeopardy. Then when smart meters are installed, the Council will claim that it had no power or jurisdiction to stop it; that the state authority of the ACC and APS’s purview trumped their local clout.

In short, the Council will disavow and divest itself of any responsibility, as it did with the street lights. The majority of the Council wanted the street lights because their installation would provide and extend the electronic grid in West Sedona (remember Ms. Scagnalli’s e-mail?). So the members didn’t fight to have a third option included on the ballot, which would have had ADOT maintain ownership of the road and there would be no street lights. They knew residents would not vote to take ownership of the road, and that the City would get its electronic grid. I’m concerned the same thing will happen with the smart meters; that the Council won’t aggressively act to ban the meters, while it secretly hopes the ACC-sponsored health study shows no ill effects. Regardless of the results, the Council will absolve itself of all responsibility as smart meters are installed and subsequently it reaps greater tax revenues.

smart meters 24So if you want to ban the meters from Sedona, e-mail the Council members (blitrell@sedonaaz.gov, dmcilroy@sedonaaz.gov, mdinunzio@sedonaaz.gov, jwilliamson@sedonaaz.gov, jmartinez@seondaaz.gov, radams@sedonaaz.gov, and mward@sedonaaz.gov) and tell them to negotiate a delay in the installation and to legally fight APS and ban smart meters from Sedona.

Henry Twombly
350 Arroyo Pinon Dr.
Sedona, AZ 86336
For the best in Arizona news and views, read www.SedonaEye.com daily!

For the best in Arizona news and views, read www.SedonaEye.com daily!

10 Comments

  1. Shared this article on Facebook with comment, “Apparently, the smart meter issue needs to be taken to the next level. We the People need to increase the pressure on all parties involved; the Sedona City Council, APS, and the ACC.”

  2. Henry:

    The Independent Adviser you’ve mentioned was, in fact, our own City Attorney Mike Goimarac.

  3. Tree Mename says:

    Liked this article on Facebook.

  4. N. Baer says:

    @Henry Twombly – Thank you for reminding people to contact our counselors to let them know we do not want our community exposed to microwave radiation. Just as an fyi before any litigation can be pursued all administrative remedies must be exhausted.Two other important steps to take; 1) Be sure to write to APS to “opt out” (see our websitehttp://www.sedonasmartmeterawareness.com/WHAT-CAN-I-DO-.html) Also, if you haven’t signed our petition, please do so and share the petition http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/ban-smart-meters-in-sedona-arizona.html.

  5. Liked this article on Facebook.

  6. Liked this article on Facebook.

  7. @Karambir Singh Khalsa

    In your comment above you say “We the People need to increase the pressure on all parties involved; the Sedona City Council, APS, and the ACC.” These are NOT all the parties involved by any means. In fact, they’re not even at the top of the list. If you really want to pressure those who are ultimately responsible for the “‘Smart Grid” agenda, which includes as a chief component known the “Smart Meter,” you need to put the pressure on your Senators and Congressional Representatives as you will realize as you read on…

    The opening paragraph from the current website of the U.S. Department of Energy states:

    President Obama has announced the largest single grid modernization investment in U.S. history, funding a broad range of technologies to spur the nation’s transition to a smarter, stronger, more efficient and reliable electric system. This will promote energy-saving choices for consumers, increase energy efficiency, and foster the growth of renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. The $3.4 billion in investments are part of the President Obama’s American “Reinvestment and Recovery Act,” and will be matched by industry funding for a total public-private investment worth over $8 billion [initially].

    The L.A Times, in an article dated June 18, 2013, entitled “Obama Nourishes Smart Grid And Feeds His Legacy,” stated that “President Obama is the biggest proponent, arguing that the technological development will mitigate the effects of climate change, create more efficiencies within the grid and allow additional green electrons to cross those wires.”

    In Future Tense magazine, a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University, it is stated that in their March 19, 2012 issue that “…in early March 2012, at a meeting for the CIA’s venture capital firm In-Q-Tel, CIA Director David Petraeus reportedly noted that ‘smart appliances’ connected to the Internet could someday be used by the CIA to track individuals.” If your grocery-list-generating refrigerator knows when you’re home, the CIA could, too, by using geo-location data from your wired appliances, according to SmartPlanet.

    Furthermore, found on the White House website under a heading entitled, “Realizing the Full Potential of Government Held Spectrum to Spur Economic Growth, President’s Council of Advisors on Science Technology (20 July 2012)” is a transcript of an interview with Barrie Trower, one of the President’s Council Advisers, who is a world-wide recognized military intelligence expert, who mentions casually that “…one of the ideas behind the Smart Meter is where they put them on everybody’s homes…They can watch every single person in that house.”

    The U.S. Department of Energy Smart Grid agenda has much more to do with Smart Grid population monitoring motives other than just energy efficiency and modernization. Moreover, they have dictated to almost every energy utility and their regulatory overseers throughout the U.S. that they want the Smart Grid, and therefore Smart Meter, policy implemented. The American people need to understand that the Fed’s are dictating policy to the states and their locally domiciled utilities.

  8. P Seeley says:

    I have never seen the likes ot this scare campaign, which was in fact begun by a Teamsters local who were protecting meter reader jobs and it mushroomed. People love hysteria and conspiracies. The latest masterful editing job of Northeast Utilities’ review of an opt in-opt out program for “smart” meters is quite an artful unfortunately successful job of selecting out words and phrases to make it appear that the utility was not in favor of the installations. Quite the contrary.

    The Electric Power Research Institute program 62 for health and safety has spent many years and millions of dollars investigating health claims and is not shy about telling its utility members what the science actually says. Unfortunately, most of the public never made it into college physics so they don’t really understand how science establishes exposure and what risk is. In fact the electric power industry is far ahead of its counterparts in oil and gas in addressing public and consumer health issues.

    This issue just totally lacks merit. It is simply an issue of dosage quantity, duration and distance. Your digital dishwasher, clock radio, and digital TV and other devices with digital displays are have far higher exposures and are right next to you , on all the time. Radio frequencies are around us all the time–there were scare stories about the unseen and hazardous radio waves in the 1930’s. They are not hazardous either. If you are really concerned you should be after the city council to prevent business establishments from having WIFI routers in public places, or to eliminate cell phone towers. They are not hazardous either. IN fact Van Allen when asked about his microwave oven said he was prepared to sit on it for 24 hours a day. I’m with Van Allen. Risk–hazard evaluation–exposure. Not scary stories that are total fiction. Not just because it’s on the internet or in a hyped up movie does it become true.

  9. Ben says:

    To: J. Rick Noran & P Seeley
    Thanks fellas for bringing a bit of reality to the conversation.

  10. N. Baer says:

    @P Seely – Do not equate natural radio frequency which surrounds us with man made frequencies that are emitted by two way communication devices that compose the “smart” grid. Make no mistake about it, “microwave sickness” was discovered in 1932 by the German scientist, Dr. Irwin Shliephake. As is the case in scientific studies, in order for this discovery to stay relevant it has been tested thousands of time. The Electric Power Research Institute is a conglomerate of all interested industry related companies so so much for any research being relevant or valid produced by that arm. There is no federal mandate requiring that the two-way communication devices be wireless and in fact, The Energy Policy Act of 2005 says that consumers who request two-way communication devices should be given them, but it says NOTHING ABOUT THEM BEING WIRELESS. You need to do some research as there are at least 6,000 peer-reviewed studies showing harm and danger from exposure to radio frequencies. In fact, our exposure increased 20,000 fold to this in just one 10 year period. There is no independent scientific study saying that the emissions from smart meters are safe. And, if you still don’t believe it and have done all your own research instead of repeating sound bytes, then be considerate of your neighbors and take the “precautionary principle” which says that you will opt out of having a wireless smart meter until they are proven 100% safe to all biological based life.

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