• $10 fee increase is not justified • Vote ‘yes’ on smart meters • Students’ performance was outstanding $10 fee increase is not justified The cover of the most recent KIUC “Currents” magazine asks, “Do we owe you money?” It
• $10 fee increase is not justified • Vote ‘yes’ on smart meters • Students’ performance was outstanding
$10 fee increase is not justified
The cover of the most recent KIUC “Currents” magazine asks, “Do we owe you money?” It would certainly appear so.
KIUC cited economic reasons for the switch to smart meters. How much money was saved? Well, judging by what they want to charge refuseniks, one can assume that the cost of reading meters prior to the switch was $10 per month each. Multiplied by 30,000 users and subtracting for the 10 percent of members who refuse the meters, that’s a savings of $270,000 per month.
Excess monies are supposed to be returned to members of the “cooperative.” So where’s our refund?
My own reasons for opting for an analog meter were also economic in nature: If I ever wanted to sell my house and if it had a smart meter, I would be turning away the 10 percent of the buying public who won’t have anything to do with smart meters.
And if the cost of sending someone around to read refuseniks’ meters hasn’t changed, since that was how all our meters were read before, where’s the justification for raising our rates $10 per month?
Greg Shepherd
Kapaa
Vote ‘yes’ on smart meters
Prior to the introduction and installation of smart meters, electrical usage was measured by meters read by meter readers. It was a regular cost item in the operations of KIUC.
Had KIUC been successful in replacing all the existing old meters with the new smart meters, it follows that the retention and the cost of retaining meter readers could have been completely eliminated while new technological advances were being added to KIUC’s operations.
Based on reasons of their own but primarily on their claim that smart meters installed in their homes were an invitation to exposure of their privacy and harmful to their health, KIUC, in deference to the insistence of approximately 10 percent of its membership, was compelled to honor the choice of members who chose not to replace the old meters with the new smart meters.
Ninety percent of meters now need not be read by meter readers. Ten percent still remained.
All, unfortunately, are not geographically located in a single cluster, which would have made it easy to retain one or two meter readers to service them all. Question: Who pays for these meter readers who need to read approximately 3,000 remaining old meters?
The KIUC Board of Directors decided to charge a fee to those who chose not to use the new meter whose fee, by the way, has already been approved by the state’s Public Utilities Commission.
The only standard that is applicable in deciding whether the board’s decision needs to be affirmed is the standard of fairness.
Vote “yes” on the ballot you will be receiving. It is only fair that those who choose not to change to the new meter pay for the continuing use and cost for retaining the use of their old meter.
Alfred Laureta
Kapaa
Students’ performance was outstanding
Recently I attended the KPAC Middle School performances on Dec. 7 and I must say that the children of the three middle schools did an awesome job memorizing their lines and performing in front of the crowd.
This was held at the convention hall. Mr. Dennis McGraw and Mr. Robert Carasco did an awesome job in directing these young actors. I was truly amazed.
Thank you KPAC for providing a safe place for these children to go and develop their talents instead of being out there on the streets and getting into mischief.
Robyne Morris
Kalaheo
