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Costs don’t make sense for City of Penticton

Penticton resident believes city staff has lost all common sense.

The City of Penticton is spending a lot of dollars, so that they can save a few.

It appears to me, that with our computer age our city administration has lost the ability of common sense and logic.

First a few words about the safety of smart meters. After seeing the video what smart meters do, killing of the ivy that grew around the meter location of the old meter at a three-metre radius, I do not need a study to confirm the hazards of these devices.

But now to the logic from the experts at City Hall. The total cost to the consumer for smart meters is $3.7 million. Let’s say, the city has a down payment $700,000 and finances $3 million at five per cent interest, the $3 million will double in about 10 years, this makes the cost of borrowing soar to $6 million.

The cost for the city reduces, so they say from $110,000 to $24,000 total net savings of $86,000 per year. Now I divide $6 million including the interest by $86,000, this equals to approximately 70 years, to recover the cost. It does not mean that the city has paid off the entire debt in 10 years. If it takes 30 years to pay off the debt, the city will spent about $18 million in cost. This of course would also triple the years to recover the cost to 210 years in total.

Our city gurus forgot that they would lay off the meter reader personnel. This would mean that at least two people (I guess) would lose their jobs. Their income would shrink to about $15,000 a year; just enough to keep their rear-end in operation. For the laid off people there will be no extra spending on consumer goods. Here the city will lose revenue from the consumer goods that these employees could have bought. After these meter readers run out of EI, the city pays their welfare cost. It may be, that these laid-off workers will find alternative employment, but someone else will lose the job that these people will take.

Well I am no expert at finding out the total human and direct cost to consumers, but no matter how I turn it, I can see no net savings for at least the next 210 years and I think I was quite generous in my estimate. The net cost is probably much, much higher than that.

Otto Sturhahn

Penticton