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Woman Arrested While Refusing Smart Meter Installation on Her Property Tells Us Her Story

Jan. 24, 2013 4:50pm Liz Klimas

Two Naperville Women Arrested While Protesting the Installation of Smart Meters on Their Homes

(Image: CBS screenshot)

Jennifer Stahl has been a strong advocate against the smart meter program in Naperville, Ill., for the last two years. The issue came to a head Wednesday afternoon when she was arrested while refusing to let the utility workers install the controversial device.

“I was protecting my property,” Stahl said in an interview with TheBlaze Thursday afternoon. “I felt my emotion was like a momma bear protecting her babies.”

Stahl was at a friend’s house when she received the call from her husband that the utility workers had arrived. She was home within 15 minutes and saw they were at a neighbor’s house. Her neighbors were not home, but they had signs stating they did not permit the new meter to be installed.

Stahl said she waited on her porch for the workers to arrive at her house. When they did, she refused them access to her backyard through her locked gate. The police — including the police supervisor, a sergeant — were called. Stahl said the sergeant explained the workers had authorization to access the meter, but Stahl stood her ground saying she didn’t approve it. The sergeant continued to try and convince Stahl to comply and said if she didn’t, he’d arrest her.

“The city has always had and maintains the right to access our equipment, and today we were simply exercising that right,” City Manager Doug Kreiger told the Chicago Tribune, which reported Wednesday’s events.

The lock on Stahl’s fence was cut, and when Stahl wouldn’t step away from the meter, she was lead away by an officer, cuffed and waited for a marked squad car to arrive to take her to the department. When asked why she was being arrested, she was told it was for interfering with a police officer.

The local CBS channel has footage of the arrest:

Did she ever think it would come to this?

“It occurred to me,” Stahl said, explaining that she previously had considered how far she would go to maintain her stance.

“I didn’t put my name on a federal lawsuit” to stand down now, Stahl continued.

The group Naperville Smart Meter Awareness has filed a lawsuit, for which there are currently motions to dismiss as well as to grant temporary restraining orders for residents refusing the meters.

(Photo: Naperville Smart Meter Awareness/Facebook)

Tom Glass, a member of the Naperville Smart Meter Awareness group, told TheBlaze Thursday he felt the fact that the city is arresting residents for refusing is “completely frightening in this day in age.”

“The city is still sending around people to read these [smart] meters … they don’t work,” Glass continued.

Stahl was one of two women arrested while smart meters were being installed on their property without permission Wednesday. Malia “Kim” Bendis was the second who received two misdemeanors for attempted eavesdropping and resisting a police officer, according to the Tribune.

This video posted to YouTube shows Bendis protesting the removal of her analog meter for installation of a smart meter:

Stahl estimated at the rate the city is going installing smart meters that they’ll be complete with 100 percent compliance by the end of the week. The Tribune reported 57,000 homes (99 percent) have them so far.

“It’s not acceptable that the city can choose for me on my behalf to install this meter that I don’t think is appropriate for myself,” Stahl said. “I choose to keep my analog meter because of all the issues. I can’t believe the city is not providing an alternative option.”

An alternative option of sorts is provided by the city. However, it still requires residents to receive a new meter. According to a Q&A document about the Naperville Smart Grid Initiative, homeowners are able to choose between participating in the smart grid program with a standard, wireless meter. Or they can opt out and will still receive what is being called a “non-standard” smart meter, which has the wireless card removed.

To receive a “non-standard” smart meter costs an initial, one-time fee of $68.35 (this is the cost difference between the two meters) and a monthly fee of $24.75 for manual reading of the meter. The Q&A emphasized that no existing analog meters will be retained by customers and that the new non-wireless, non-standard smart meters installed for residents opting out of the program requires new equipment and special training for workers to learn how to read them.

“Therefore, there is an incremental cost for this service,” the Q&A explains.

The controversy over smart meters has been seen in cities around the nation. Some have concerns about the type of data the smart meters will allow to be collected (and how that data will be used). Others worry about the health risks associated with transmitter in the smart meter, including headaches, insomnia, tinnitus and DNA breakdown.

Here’s video of a third Naperville mother emotionally refusing the smart meter Wednesday fearing her daughter’s health:

As for Stahl, she said when she arrived home later, the smart meter was installed.

“I choose to rise above. I’m not going to worry about what I’m going to do [about the meter] at this point. I’m going to focus on my energy into mobilizing the people of Naperville and around the country … to do something to take a stand as well,” Stahl said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include information about the option for customers wishing to opt out of the smart meter program.

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Comments (722)

freebreezin
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 6:31pm
OK, Here’s the deal with all this. I am an engineer with a local electric service provider and we have been installing “smart meters” for a couple of years now. We are doing it in stages because of the cost and because certain other equipment has to be installed at intervals along the grid to pass information along to our call centers. Folks, these meters are NOT invading your privacy, but are being installed to help electric service providers provide better service by monitoring usage in certain areas thereby allowing them to regulate the amount of electricity in a certain area during peak times. We cannot tell what you are watching on TV, or what you are serving for dinner, but we can tell how much power you are using on the coldest or warmest day of the year. If the power goes out in the middle of the night you don’t have to get up and call it in….we already know and have a crew on the way out to fix the problem. There is no invasion of privacy and these meters will not cause you any illness. Hell, the food you eat is what’s causing that.
The meter is the property of the electric service provider and is used to tell us how much power you consume, The meter base, that it plugs into is yours. If you want power it has to be meters so we can get paid for our product that keeps ou warm/cool and entertained. We have a right to access our facilities (meter) and the people that install them generally work 8-5. They are not sneaking around you home when they know you away.

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- piplovestheUSA
  Posted on January 24, 2013 at 7:22pm
  If the meter does not need to be read and the customer does not want it on their house why not install it at the pole where their drop starts. Off of their property. I know it would be somewhat costly to get a bucket out there and a new type of meter socket box. Also it is public knowledge how many watts different things pull so it seems they could use programs to know what you are using and when. Also what stops someone who does not work for the power company from having a device that can read your meter and know these things? I can think of many different companies or orgs that would like this info.
  
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- Tigress1
  Posted on January 24, 2013 at 7:38pm
  You said “allowing them to regulate the amount of electricity in a certain area during peak times.” I’ve heard that it will also allow them to CUT OFF electricity at certain peak times. Nothing like cooking dinner or doing some laundry and having your electricity simply getting cut off because too many people are using electricity at the same time. (This is already happening in some countries around the world.) We all know how annoying that is when it happens during a thunderstorm!
  
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- piplovestheUSA
  Posted on January 24, 2013 at 8:02pm
  regulate= CUT-OFF. The power to your home is 240volt A/C and can not be changed without damage to your equipment. I can get a cheap clamp-on meter to read amps for 50 bucks. Add a small raintight cover and a transmitter’ clamp it to the existing drop at the top of the pole and done. Knowing ohms law an amp reading is all you should need. What does a smart meter cost the power company?
  
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- jgaltwhois
  Posted on January 24, 2013 at 9:53pm
  You are not telling the whole story. The meters being installed in Naperville also have a “kill” switch that can be programmed to turn off power, with a penalty time out, if the consumer uses too much energy. The data from y our home is stored indefinitely. Naperville just introduced their so called TOU (time of use billing) option that considers the hours of noon until 9:00 PM “peak” and “critical peak” which will cost about 3-4 times the rate. So if you avoid using your home during half your waking hours, Naperville figured that the homeowner could save $1.00 a month. Wow, what a return on investment! This is all one big scam to inventory each family energy use (oops carbon tax time, force consumers to pay a whole lot more for a whole lot less, eventually sell family use patterns, law enforcement, and a heyday for lawyers to supoena for disability claims, unemployment, divorce etc. this is progressive technology, alright.
  
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- leetpriest
  Posted on January 25, 2013 at 1:15pm
  “but we can tell how much power you are using on the coldest or warmest day of the year. If the power goes out in the middle of the night you don’t have to get up and call it in….we already know and have a crew on the way out to fix the problem.”
  
  As can anyone with a laptop, RF capabilities, and elementary programming knowledge.
  
  As for your little “we already have a crew on the way to fix the problem”. No you don’t. Just stop lying, it’s total BS. Rarely has the power company actually come out and fixed the problem the same day that I’ve called, much less within a couple of hours of the problem happening. As for smart meters helping you determine when there is a problem, do you seriously expect me to believe that this day in age, you can’t pinpoint a fault or outage?
  
  Bro, we both know that 99% of outages occur with the equipment past the meter, do you honestly expect me to believe that when a transformer goes out, you have no way of determining whom that transformer serves? Really?
  
  Try to tell the truth next time, electrician.
  
  Report this comment
- shandog
  Posted on January 25, 2013 at 6:15pm
  Well said! Thank you!
  
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- freebreezin
  Posted on January 26, 2013 at 7:41am
  Leetpriest, you don’t really know enough about me to be calling me a liar. I guess I should have said that the company I work for will be on the way out to fix the problem before your have to call. But then, we were some of the ones that responded after the Super storm Sandy incident and had to sit around and wait on the unionized companies to decide when we could start helping get the lights back on. By the way the power company is not a branch of the fed gov. We didn’t come up with the carbon tax issue, we just have to abide by it. Also, regulate doesn’t equal cut off, Cut off = you didn’t pay your bill. No customer = no money for us. As for your meter base, it should be getting 120/240 all the time. The only way to adjust power to you water heater is through load management and that is something you would have to agree with. Debate me like a man. Don’t call me a liar unless you know me to be one. I work hard for our consumers and know a little bit about this but I am human and I don’t know it all.
  
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FlagWavingPatriot
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 6:29pm
For all of you thinking you’ll just go off the grid, you better think a little harder on that. You KNOW the politicians won’t allow that to happen when it starts interfering with power company profits. They also won’t like people living independently.

There is no doubt in my mind, sometime in the not-so-distant future (when being off the grid becomes more mainstream), you will be charged fees or taxes for being OFF the grid. Obamacare set the precedent…they can now “tax” you for NOT buying something, you know, for the “good of the collective”.

All this technology is good for many applications, but it’s also giving the powers-that-be the ability to insert themselves further and further into our lives and privacy almost completely unchecked.

I’ve always liked this quote from the Jurassic Park movie: “…your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could [do something], that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

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- AxelPhantom
  Posted on January 24, 2013 at 8:32pm
  I don’t think that they will be taxing it for quite some time, at least until the Dems can get rid of the green voting constinuency.
  
  Report this comment
American_Made
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 6:21pm
Nothing a 10lb sledge hammer won’t cure. How many meters you want to put on my house? Gee officer i don’t know what happened to it. Do you have a warrant to be on my property? Then get the hell off till you do. Easy concept, I would smash everyone till they put the old one back.

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Liberalslayer_1861
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 6:17pm
1984/ Agenda 21, what took u so long?!(sarcasm) I will be damned if they will do this to my home. My house, MY CHOICE!!! Oh but they won’t take your firearms. Yeah Right!!!!!

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- hugoscancer
  Posted on January 26, 2013 at 7:53am
  it ain’t your meter Slick. Pick your battles. This ain’t one of them.
  
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krazykat_randi
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 6:12pm
In California, we recently won against having to have a smart meter. What they don’t tell you is that if you never got a smart meter in the first place (which we never did) they will still charge you for taking out the smart meter you never got! We had to pay $200.00 to have a meter removed that we never had installed. Talk about extortion.

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rickc34
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 6:10pm
Welcome to the new world order, now just wait for the anti-christ to make his appearance. You will have no rights, you will be told what to eat what to drive and what you can watch on tv and more will follow.

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coosting
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 6:04pm
Tell them to come and get their meter and go off the grid!

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Bob350
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 6:03pm
I wonder if the Police that allowed this to happen are members of the “Oath Keepers”?

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rgrapp001
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 6:01pm
I’m not sure if this has ever been pointed out, but those of us who live in condo’s (or even apartment complexes) have absolutly no say in NOT have these devices installed. Living in the progressive state of CA and in a condo, there was no way to prevent having the smart meter installed. All meters to the building (and there are six units to a building) are in one location and is unlocked. It really looks like these devices will be installed no matter what!

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coosting
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 6:01pm
So go off the grid!!

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another pucker
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 6:00pm
We have all watched as people say “it is illegal for you to …” Like this cop saying it is illegal for her to record him. We must all learn as much of our local law as we can because this is just an intimidation tactic. I bet if she had a fox4 truck sitting outside her house and a big fox4 camera he wouldn’t say it was illegal to record him. He knows it’s a lie and he wouldn’t want that hitting prime time news. During the day, on my drive way I can record any damn thing I want to while jumping up and down in your face singing “somewhere over the rainbow” and if you don’t like it then get the H#LL off of my property and I will record you as you leave and I can’t zoom in no more. BULLIES!!!

XOXOXO

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Chuck7884
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 6:00pm
Buy Your own definition. I have the right to buy all the surrounding property and build a fence while you are at work and lock the gate and refuse you access to your property.

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OldNGrumpy
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 5:59pm
The laws regarding utilities are fairly consisent across the country. The meter is the property of the utility company. As a condition of service the utility has the right to access private property to maintain their equipment. If the property owner wishes to end the utility companies access rights, they may choose to cancel service at any time.

Cutting the lock off the gate was a no no and the police officer is in serious trouble. The correct proceedure would have been for the utility to disconnect service at the pole or transformer.

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- Chuck7884
  Posted on January 24, 2013 at 6:07pm
  Very Good post!
  
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- Judeo_Christian
  Posted on January 24, 2013 at 6:50pm
  This is a civil issue and not a criminal one. The police arresting this woman on her own property was wrong, unconstitutional (4th, 10th amendments) and denied due process. No warrents were issued in this action, so the police screwed the pooch. The city is going to get sued big time. Rightly so.
  
  There is no expectation of privacy on a sidewalk or city street. The woman who got arrested for not turning off the recording device has a valid lawsuit waiting for her as well.
  
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- Hotconchick
  Posted on January 24, 2013 at 7:10pm
  In the state of Illinois, unfortunately, it is illegal to record the police in action. She won’t win that case. They will slap her with a fine and send her home.
  
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- thebeckster
  Posted on January 31, 2013 at 12:42am
  @Hotconchick
  ‘In the state of Illinois, unfortunately, it is illegal to record the police in action. She won’t win that case.’
  
  Actually, she just might:
  http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/08/federal-appeals-court-illinois-cannot-enforce-ban-on-recording-police-officers/
  
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Stone Cold Truth
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 5:59pm
This is why participation in local government is important. A few know it alls on a City Board or County Commission can turn your world upside down with one scantly attended meeting on a rainy Tuesday night. My advice would be to sue first and then move to Texas.

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garbagecanlogic
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 5:56pm
Wonder if the police knew the ramifications of the meter and if so, what did they feel when theirs was installed? What will they say 5 yrs from now.

The U.N. Out Of The U.S.
Praise Be To Obama. Psalm 109:8

The U.S. Out Of The U.N.

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hannah
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 5:56pm
There are allot of people in Canada who are fighting NOT to have the smart meter installed. One man built a steel box around his so the meter reader can still see it to read but they can’t take it. I said when this started, I never wanted one. Well guess what, I’ve got one because we bought a new house that already had it. I don’t know where this government take over will end but it sucks. ;(

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MASSACHUSETTS MILITIA
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 5:54pm
Wow, the blaze is starting to cover stuff that that evil conspiracy guy has been covering for years. Neo cons jumping on the bandwagon, same as with the Agenda 21 stuff.

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P4cooler
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 5:51pm
Makes me sick! I hope Jennifer will win this fight. Analog meters are still in production and we should be allowed to opt out without the very high opt out fees. http://www.w4ar.com/ Some people have had success placing lead sheeting inside their homes exactly where the meter sits outside the wall. http://www.rotometals.com/Lead-Sheet-s/31.htm We are bombarded on many fronts by perhaps population reduction agendas, from the fluoride water flowing from our faucets to vaccines (I wouldn’t trust any gov agency assurance a particular vaccine is safe)!

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nonofmybiznez
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 5:48pm
They are sending the message that you will be thrown in jail or worse if you do not comply. Welcome to pre-WWII Germany.

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cassandra
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 5:44pm
can you say AGENDA 21 this is very real so wake your neighbors up see if your city is implementing ICLEI same thing Read Behing the Green Mask U.N. Agenda 21 by Rosa Koire great read it will tell you what to do to fight it , what to say at a town meeting and give you the buzz words to look out for

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Kolchack
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 5:44pm
This is one of the stupidest things I’ve read in a long time. There was a “smart meter” on my house when I moved in, I don’t see the problem with it. It’s only an electric meter, nothing more. Only with the smart meter you don’t have strangers stomping through your yard to read the meter, they can do it from the street. The only other option is to have the electric turned off.

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- DougHuffman
  Posted on January 24, 2013 at 5:52pm
  Well, there are smart meters and there are the smart meters with which you are familiar. The smart meters under discussion locally disable your high loads on someone elses command. No hot water after a nooner. No driving your electric car to the after hours club.
  
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EqualJustice
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 5:38pm
They wonder why we are concernd about the feds taking our weapons? Right there.

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BostonHarold
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 5:34pm
…and so it begins…in Illinois…that figures don’t it? Cover your meters with dog excrement folks!

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LeadNotFollow
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 5:33pm
I’m surprised that an officer didn’t shoot her dog, while they were arresting the woman.

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california_red
Posted on January 24, 2013 at 5:32pm
The people that worry about the health affects of Smart Meters all deserve tinfoil hats. We live in an age of radio wave. Man ny of these same fools run WiFi in their house. At the very least, we are surrounded by radio waves everyday of our lives. I have no compassion for that side of the argument.

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