1 state of michigan 2 before the michigan public …

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METRO COURT REPORTERS, INC. (248) 426-9530

STATE OF MICHIGAN

BEFORE THE MICHIGAN PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION

In the matter, on the Commission's own motion, to promulgate rules governing the billing of residential Case No. U-18120 and nonresidential electric and natural gas service. ____________________________________/

PUBLIC HEARING

Proceedings held in the above-entitled

matter before Suzanne D. Sonneborn, Administrative

Law Judge with MAHS, at the Michigan Public Service

Commission, 7109 West Saginaw Highway, Lake Michigan

Hearing Room, Lansing, Michigan, on Thursday,

September 22, 2016, at 9:11 a.m.

APPEARANCES: GRAHAM FILLER Assistant Attorney General 7109 West Saginaw Highway, 3rd Floor Lansing, Michigan 48917 On behalf of Michigan Public Service Commission Staff

REPORTED BY: Erin Stilman (CSR-3588) (RPR-019261)

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I N D E X

STATEMENT BY: PAGE

David Jonesse 7

Brock Millard 10

James Ault 13

Ed McClellan 16

John Holeton 19

Jeanine Deal 28

Georgetta Livingston 31

John Kurczewski 37

Jaime Chimner 41

Nancy Shules 48

Jim McKindles 50

Kathy Johnson 51

Sandy Taylor 55

Carole Garcia 59

Deanna Hilbert 66

De Liddy 69

Richard Meltzer 72

John Diehl 80

David Lonier 84

David Sheldon 86

Jay Bowers 92

Lori Ebaugh 97

Lola Killey 102

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I N D E X (Continued)

STATEMENT BY: PAGE

John Tatar 110

Dominic Cusumano 117

Sarah Mullkoff 126

Kenneth Rhoads 131

Daniel Nash 132

Ralph and Donna Stenman 134

Myron Nims 137

Shannon Kig 139

Sharon Koenig 143

Suzanne Yarbrough 144

Ron Yarbrough 149

Michelle Rison 155

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Lansing, Michigan

Thursday, September 22, 2016

At 9:11 a.m.

- - -

(Hearing commenced pursuant to due notice.)

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Good morning everyone.

Today is September 22, 2016, and this is a hearing

before the Michigan Public Service Commission.

THE AUDIENCE: Can you speak up, please.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: All right. Good

morning.

THE AUDIENCE: Good morning.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: This is a hearing

before the Michigan Public Service Commission in

Case No. U-18120 captioned in the matter of the

Commission's own motion to promulgate rules governing

the billing of residential and nonresidential electric

and natural gas service.

Pursuant to due notice, a public hearing

in this matter was set for this time and place. My

name is Suzanne Sonneborn and I am the presiding

officer who has been assigned to this matter.

May I please have the appearance of

counsel on behalf of the Commission's Staff.

MR. FILLER: Sure. Assistant Attorney

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General Graham Filler on behalf of Staff.

THE AUDIENCE: We can't hear him.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Thank you.

Can you please repeat your name,

Mr. Filler.

MR. FILLER: Graham Filler of behalf of

Staff.


The notice of today's public hearing was

provided in the Commission's July 22nd, 2016 order in a

notice of hearing. The notice of hearing, Exhibit A to

the Commission's order, was also served via e-mail

transmission to all persons shown on the ListServ

distribution list attached to that Commission order.

Mr. Filler, does Staff agree that

today's public hearing was properly noticed?

MR. FILLER: Yes, your Honor.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Thank you. Pursuant

to the Commission's order and notice of hearing, this

hearing is for the purpose of providing an opportunity

for all interested persons to present statements,

views, data, questions, or arguments concerning the

Commission's proposed rules governing consumer

standards and billing practices. Specifically, the

Commission proposes to amend and combine two rule sets;

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Billing Practices Applicable to Nonresidential Electric

and Gas Customers, and Consumer Standards and Billing

Practices for Electrical and Gas Residential Service.

Both of these rule sets can be found in

Michigan Administrative Code. The first set is at

Rule 460.1601 to 460.1640, and the second rule set can

be found at Rule 460.101 through 460.169.

This hearing will continue until all

individuals and parties present have had a reasonable

opportunity to present their statements regarding these

proposed rules.

Given how well attended this hearing is

and how many individuals would like to speak, I would

ask that the statements be reasonably limited in

duration in order to ensure that all interested persons

have an opportunity to participate in today's

proceedings.

Turning to the sign-in list, the first

individual who is listed who has indicated he wishes to

make a statement is David Jonesse.

And I would like to have the individuals

who do wish to present statements to proceed as I call

them to this front table where the microphone is on and

you can be heard.

Mr. Jonesse, good morning.

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MR. JONESSE: Good morning. I don't

believe I'm that adequately prepared but I have a

statement that I ended up e-mailing.

I am present here today as I and other

parties in our industry would like to be identified in

your new rules structure when we are extorted and

mistreated by Consumer Power and other utilities owning

overhead infrastructure such as overhead electrical and

communication lines per the new Rule 151, currently

Rule 133.

I would like to be identified because

the infrastructure is interfering with commerce as

commonly defined and greatly affects our profitability

and ability to continue business.

I'm here today representing the niche

industry of structural transport, commonly known as

house moving. The primary benefits this niche industry

offers society is the preservation of historical

structures and providing residence for hundreds of

Michigan residents annually, as well as recycling all

the materials to build a house with all the green

benefits that that includes, as well as the

corresponding reduction in the use of limited landfill

space.

We also annually recycle hundreds of

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commercial and farm buildings which will be demolished

in landfilled without our services and relocate a vast

variety of industrial machinery required by the auto

and other heavy industry.

Locally Consumer Powers has implemented

a $500 fee just to quote a price to temporary locate

their infrastructure to allow passage of illegal

over-height loads, the provided quoted price appears to

have no relation to the men, equipment, or other time

required and they repeatedly have refused to provide

any kind of itemized billing for what they are

furnishing. It recently took six weeks of continuous

communication --

Whew, I'm nervous.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Take your time.

MR. JONESSE: -- to -- continuous

communication to even get their quote. They rent

access on their poles at the rate of $1 a year per pole

to phone and cable companies which provides them income

from public land they use for free which effectively

creates layers of wires that -- I lost my place --

which effectively creates layers of wires that must be

relocated for any load over the standard height of

13' 6". They refuse to grant permission for qualified

contractors who have installed much of the Consumer

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infrastructure to work on their facilities, and they

intentionally misrepresent the electrical code by

calling our loads mobile construction site and put

thousands of people out of, thousands of people out of

power to maintain a 10' working clearance from any

energized line while other traffic routinely passes

within inches of similar lines and many are ripped down

by standard trucks as, as they are not installed to

code.

They repeatedly have called MiOSHA using

the mobile construction site -- I keep losing my

page -- gambit until OSHA learned that there was no

such definition. Consumer's management personnel have

several times tried to block legal permitted loads and

would not desist until threatened with arrest by county

deputies retained for traffic control and escort

services.

Is it prohibitively expensive and time

consuming for our niche industry to sue every

governmental body who has given permission for a

private entity to restrict commerce on right-of-ways

owned by the public. If you are a customer of Consumer

Powers and want a pole moved for a new driveway, there

is no restrictions on what they can charge, when they

can do it, and no obligation for them to even review

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your request. Consumer's has intentionally

misrepresented that tariff section to mean that the

same lack of accountability applies to anyone who wants

wires relocated for transfer of any over-height load.

In my various communications with the

MPSC they have indicated that they agreed with the

currently monopoly and extortion an industry Goliath.

This situation is intolerable and some accountability

and cooperation for any regulating bodies would be well

received.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Thank you very much,

Mr. Jonesse.

Brock Millard, good morning.

MR. MILLARD: Good morning your Honor.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Honor, my name is Brock

Millard. I live in Columbiaville, Michigan. I'd like

to present the first goal of the MPSC is to establish

fair and reasonable rates for regulated services and

adopt and administer fair terms and conditions of

service for Michigan's utility customers.

I would like to address some concerns

that I have in regards to U-18120. The section that I

would like to discuss is under part 8, Procedures For

Shutoff and Restoration of Service, specifically

Rule 37(a), (b) and (c). (a) states: Without notice,

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if a condition on the customer's premises is determined

by the utility or a governmental agency to be

hazardous; (b) without notice, if a customer uses

equipment in a matter that adversely affects the

utility's equipment or the utility's service to others;

(c) without notice, if unauthorized use of the

equipment furnished and owned by the utility occurs,

including obtaining the use of equipment by submitting

an application containing false information.

Without notice is no prior notification.

Customer's premises is house or building together with

its land and outbuildings. Governmental agency is an

agency responsible for the oversight and administration

of specific functions. Hazardous; risky or dangerous.

So a house or a building that was built

prior to 1978 could be considered hazardous because it

has lead paint? How about a house or building that has

asbestos siding? Think of a city such as Detroit with

all the asbestos that would be under the aluminum

siding; is that considered hazardous? How about

someone smoking? Is leaving a garden rake in the yard

hazardous? Some of these may be tongue in cheek, but

without defining what is hazardous, it leaves the door

wide open for almost any possibility.

Without notice would allow for potential

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abuses by utility companies and governmental agencies.

A notice of 10 days such as is current in R 460.138,

Rule 38(1) safeguards all customers from abuse.

Again, Rule (b) and (c) use very vague

language that leaves definitions up to a utility's

discretion.

A possible scenario for Rule (b) is

several people welding in their garages in the same

neighborhood at the same time; would lights dim mean

adversely affecting the service to others? Would using

too much electricity adversely affect service to

others? It would be very easy to blame shift,

especially during peak demand.

I understand Rule (c) and it sounds

good, except it is without notice. Again vague. I

have possible scenarios for Rule (c) also, but I will

forgo them right now.

In closing, will a list be published of

what the utility or government agency sees as a

violation?

Please consider fair terms and

conditions of service for the utility customers of

Michigan.

Thank you.


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Mr. Millard.

Jim Ault.

Good morning.

MR. AULT: My name is Jim Ault. I'm

President of the Michigan Electric and Gas Association

which is a trade association of investor-owned

utilities that serve fewer than 250,000 customers in

Michigan. So we have, for example, Indiana Michigan

Power, Alpena Power for Electric, MGU Gas, Wisconsin

Public Service, Excel, a lot of Upper Peninsula

service, but we work as a trade association with the

entire industry on trying to address issues in common

when we can. So we do work with Consumer's and DTE on

matters including these billings rules.

Right now the industry's been engaged

actually in this process for a number of years

participating in work groups that the staff will

organize to allow interested parties to come in and

discuss rules as they're trying to formulate the

changes.

We much appreciate from the industry

side that opportunity which is open to others,

including people commenting in this room, and they're

usually publicized and efforts are made to bring others

in. We did have that kind of process on these rules.

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We intend to put our comments in at the

written time because there's actually matters that are

still under discussion, and we're probably going to

learn a little bit today too from some of these

comments.

Our joint comments would probably

include the mega members plus the major utilities as

well. We don't have a lot of issues because of the

work group process, but there may be new ones that

arise as we may hear today.

We have two branches of the comments are

going to be, one is kind of substantive rule issues

like you've heard comments on already, and then

technical legal matters, and probably the biggest one

of those I will note on the hearing today is the effort

to combine the residential and nonresidential rules.

And there's a quote of the rule-making process that

says that catchline headings or the section headings

are not considered part of the substantive rule. And

so the draft used, actually wisely I think, the

headings to delineate which rule applies to residential

and which rule applies to nonresidential, because

there's still some of that in the rules. And we're

going to propose that in the substantive rule that the

distinction was simply made so that it actually counts

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as a substantive part of the rule.

So that's probably the one big comment I

want to say today. Otherwise I haven't heard so far

the comments, you know, I don't really want to respond

specifically to these but on things like the clearance

and line, there's codes that apply. And there is two

things I do want to know because I think there are

going to be a lot of comments on issues, there is a

public benefit to utility service and use of the public

right of way, as well is a widespread public benefit

just doing the availability of service. And sometimes

there's tradeoffs that that encompasses.

The other one is that the Commission has

a complaint process, and if there's sort of abuse going

on and people feel that these rules are being applied

unfairly, that process is open. In fact, it's often

used for people that have an issue with the way

utilities are administering the rules.

And finally, I'll point out, I don't

know if there will be any low income comments today on

some of that shutoff protection and things like that,

there is a group called the Coalition to Keep Michigan

Warm, that would include interested citizens that have

interest in the low income issues. That group is open

to participation. There's a lot of participation by

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non-profits that administer low income assistance. I

think that group is considering filing written comments

here too by the written comments date.

So with that, that's the extent of my

comments today. Thank you.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Thank you, Mr. Ault.

Ed McClellan.

Good morning.

MR. MCCLELLAN: Hi. My name is Ed

McClellan. I'm a life-long resident of Ann Arbor, and

by profession I'm a financial adviser, and by necessity

I've become a serious student of EMF hypersensitivity.

I say by necessity because of my wife's

hypersensitivities. Since the introduction of cell

phones, she has been really unable to use a cell phone

except for texting, and then she holds it on speaker

phone way out here. And she'll -- the family joke is:

I'm getting a headache, I'm hanging up, and just she

goes.

Her employer provided her with a

Blackberry. She couldn't use it. It gave her serious

headaches, nausea, confusion, the brain fog that I'm

sure many in this room are going to talk about later.

She can't be around WiFi, Comcast, Xtent

makes her just crazy. I bought her a computer one

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Christmas and she couldn't use it, it was making her

sick. We couldn't figure it out. So I bought a

special meter, found out that that wireless keyboard,

every time you touch a key sends a pulse. And I

replaced it with a wired keyboard, she's fine.

In 2012, DTE installed a smart meter in

our home. I came home from work and I found her at the

far corner of our home huddled in a mass crying. We

called DTE. We had the smart meter removed. At that

point they said sure, we'll just put the old analog

meter back on. Within 48 hours she was fine and back

to running triathlons.

In June of this year we responded to DTE

under threat of electric power cut-off that we had to

try this opt-out meter. So, well, we didn't want,

didn't want our electricity cut-off so we tried the

opt-out smart meter. Same results. This time,

however, my wife did not recover as quickly, or they

would not replace the meter.

She's been to our family medical doctor,

her own personal doctor, Dr. Christine Krause, M.D.

Assistant Professor and Partner in Family Medicine at

University of Michigan who wrote a letter to DTE on her

behalf citing her symptoms, all consistent to be

associated with hypersensitivities to EMFs and

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specifically asking DTE to replace our opt-out meter

with our old analog meter. We've presented this letter

to DTE all the way up to Mr. Jerry Anderson. I

personally talked to Mr. Anderson on cell phone. We

e-mailed him this letter. He said that it's out of his

hands, that it's this Commission's role and

responsibility under your direction. He says that he

cannot restore analog meters.

So today, under advisement of our own

counsel, we're providing you also a copy of this letter

from her doctor requesting that we get our analog meter

back and restore some of her health.

A few questions still remain for me. I

said I'm a serious student of studying this

hypersensitivity stuff and I just have touched the

service. I met many people that are even in far worse

condition than my wife.

So if I've agreed to let DTE -- if I've

agreed to pay to have DTE come around and read a meter,

I'm paying extra; why can't they just read an analog

meter that I've had on my house for decades?

Secondly, I'm glad to question the

purpose of the Michigan Public -- the MPSC. I've only

recently become acquainted with your organization, the

Commission. On your website it says the Commission,

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we're growing the Michigan economy and enhancing the

quality of life by assuring safe, reliable energy and

telecommunication services. I would, from my

observations thus far feel like your Commission is

doing an excellent job ensuring the growth and health

of the monopolistic energy companies, but I would like

to try to hold you accountable if I can to ensuring

that all energy delivered to my house and all the

residents of Michigan is safe and reliable.


Mr. McClellan.

John Holeton.

Good morning.

MR. HOLETON: Good morning, your Honor.

I didn't catch your name earlier.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: It's Susan Sonneborn.

MR. HOLETON: I'm a little hard of

hearing. What's that?

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Suzanne Sonneborn.

MR. HOLETON: Sanborn?

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Sonneborn.

MR. HOLETON: Sonneborn?

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Yes.

MR. HOLETON: And the Staff is -- I

didn't --

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JUDGE SONNEBORN: Graham Filler is the

attorney for the Commission Staff.

MR. HOLETON: What's his last name?

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Filler, F-i-l-l-e-r.

MR. HOLETON: I'm hard of hearing. I'm

sorry about that.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: That's okay.

MR. HOLETON: I'm here today on behalf

of myself as a customer of DTE and the people of the

State of Michigan. And I understand that it's called

the Michigan Public Service Commission and the

Commission is not serving the public. There are many

customers in this audience today that are doing without

power because they did not know how to address the

rules, the consumer billing and practices and receive

justice and stop the utilities such as DTE from

terminating their service and leaving them without life

supporting energy.

There's many people in this audience

right now running on generators. And they survived the

winter last year and maybe before, and they might have

to do it this year. And here you are trying to go

ahead and eliminate the due process in the Consumer's

billing practices.

And the gentleman talked earlier, and he

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read some of the issues on, in 461.37, shutoff or

denial of service is now at the whim of the utilities.

It says without notice. It says under 137.1, if

condition of a customer's premises is determined by the

utility or government agency to be hazardous. And the

definition, there's no definition of hazardous. It's

at the whim of the utility to terminate your power or

shut you off immediately.

And I'm going to refer to the old rule

460.139 (a), (b) and (i) and I that says that the

utility must give a clear and concise reason for

shutoff, that where the customer may make inquiry,

enter into a settlement, or file a compliant. And

you've eliminated that in the new Consumer's billing

practices, that the consumer is not notified when a

utility such as DTE comes on their premises and says:

Give me access, and you say, well, why are you here?

Give me access; if you don't give me access and argue

with me, we're going to shutoff your power. They don't

have to tell you that. They don't have to show their

ID card if they choose not to. They can now, according

to the new rules, without notice, terminate your

service. Where's the due process in that?

I've had to go ahead and file a

complaint. My wife filed a complaint back in 2010 and

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DTE just walked onto my property, took off my analog

meter, and put on a digital meter. My wife ranted and

raved and screamed and yelled and after a couple weeks

she got the analog meter put back on.

And the MPSC, Carol Simon said: The

MPSC Staff has contacted Detroit Edison on your behalf.

Detroit utility representatives explained that DTE

replaced your current meter with the old style meter;

that's my analog meter. DTE also offered to come out

make, take measurements of the electro-magnetic field,

EMF, around and within your home which you declined.

Should you have any additional concerns or questions

about your complaint, please contact your utility

company directly. This matter is now considered

resolved.

And two years ago DTE came on my

property and demanded to put an AMI meter on my

property. They had a security guard standing in my

driveway, six trucks on my street, and they wanted

access to go ahead and put an AMI meter on my home.

Now according to this I believe I have a

contract that would allow me to mitigate injury. And

it's a fundamental principal of law that if you think

you're going to be injured from any substance or act

that you try to mitigate those damages or injuries to

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you personally.

And DTE took that new meter off and

replaced it with an analog meter, my old analog meter,

back on my home. And they shouldn't have been coming

around and try to go ahead as the gentleman talked

earlier about the electro-magnetic field or the radio

frequency radiation causing his wife to be ill. My

wife wanted to be protected from possible future

injury. And we got the analog meter back and DTE

agreed to do that. So why are they again intentionally

trying to inflict injury and damages on us and we don't

have a recourse.

I filed a complaint with DTE. I filed a

complaint with the MPSC, and they said it's not prima

facie. Now why should I be -- hire a lawyer or go

become a lawyer to go ahead and file a complaint with

the MPSC to get this here contract, or according to the

rules a settlement which is agreeable in the rules,

okay, that we're supposed to be able to enter into a

settlement on 460.139 (a), (b) and No. 2 enter into a

settlement. We got a settlement. We get to keep our

analog meter. Why should I have to become a lawyer or

hire a lawyer or possibly have my electrical service

terminated because I stopped to talk to this DTE

representative.

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Now when I talked to the representative

in my driveway, he listened to me. And he goes, well,

you can't have locks on those meters. I go excuse me,

I will take those locks off if you promise not to put

an AMI meter on my home. You can read my meter,

service my meter, repair my meter, and replace my

meter, you're more than welcome to come back here and

do all that, but you're not allowed to go ahead and put

an AMI meter on because it may have injury and damages.

We've got to mitigate those injury and damages.

And these new rules you're applying here

eliminate our choice, our ability to go ahead and

address a complaint with the MPSC. You are no longer

serving the public. You're serving the electrical

company by allowing them without notice to terminate

our service.

There are people here being injured,

running generators 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

People moved out of their home because they can't live

there because they did not receive a proper notice,

they were not able to file a complaint, an inquiry, and

have time to go ahead and address this.

Your billing practices rules, you

changed 460.115 to 114 that says a customer can

self-read. There is no reason for DTE to come on to a

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person's property and replace a perfectly good analog

meter with an AMI meter that may have potential harm

and injury to a person when they can self-report that

reading on their own by postcard, by fax, by e-mail, by

telephone, according to the rules of the MPSC.

Why would DTE come in and forcefully

demand access and then go ahead because the new rules

say that you changed the definition of customer. The

customer is now an account holder instead of the

purchaser of electricity. It used to be that the

people in the household -- I'm married, my wife is the

head, she has the account. We both pay the bills, we

co-mingle our money. It's our energy. It's our home.

So why am I eliminated from addressing the issue of DTE

coming on my property? All of a sudden, any adult, I'm

residing in that property, I don't know why you're

here, get off the property; well, we'll terminate your

service because according to the rules if the customer

refuses to go ahead and allow admittance to the

property for inspection or repair or whatever, they can

terminate your service and shut it off immediately.

Where's the due process in that? Where is the customer

who has filed the complaint? You've eliminated that

under 460.139. 139, you've eliminated that.

And I don't understand how a customer

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can go ahead and address these issues. Why should a

customer be burdened with going through this process?

I have a case now, 17986, it's almost

three months old, that I just addressed to you. Okay.

And the judge has still not come up with a decision

because it's about mitigating injury. When is, where

is the rule in this here new standard of billing

practices that says that DTE has failed to go ahead and

comply the settlement that I have here that they will

not go ahead and put a new meter on my home and injure

me? When will DTE not be protected by the MPSC billing

and standard practices and be able to be sued civilly?

Because they are violating our rights. And the MPSC is

changing the rules to go ahead to protect utilities,

not the people of the State of Michigan.

We need to know that we file a

complaint, it's a simple complaint. My wife got

results within three weeks. They came and took that

digital meter off my home and put the analog meter

back.

I've had to go ahead, revise the

complaint to be prima facie. And I know of five other

people who got the same formatted letter. The only

think that changed was the complaint number. Okay.

It's the same letter. They just changed the name to,

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to who it was and the complaint number. It's a form

letter. They didn't even read, as far as I know they

didn't even read my complaint. It's just not prime

fascia.

So I had my hearing. I had my case.

The judge heard it. And I just want to know how we can

address and file a complaint like this gentleman from

the electrical company said earlier, okay. The

complaint is supposed to be a simple process. It

should not take a lawyer to go ahead and come before

you and address a simple complaint. It should be a

matter of choice.

We talked about the DTE and the biggest

thing with the MPSC now is that the 10 percent or

20 percent of outside utility companies trying to go

ahead and wrestle in on DTE's and Consumer's Energy's

territory, consumer choice. It's supposed to be

basically for the schools.

But customers are not given a choice.

Residential customers are not given a choice of another

provider. We're stuck with the utility working its way

on our property.

And we're here today to go ahead and say

that these rules are supposed protect us, the

residential customer, not the corporations. They're

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supposed to put us first. And I wish that you could go

ahead and put a new rule in there, put the rule clear

and precise that a customer can go ahead, file a

complaint, get a hearing, and get results within a

reasonable period of time and not be left out in the

cold without electrical service.

Thank you very much.


Mr. Holeton.

Jeanine Deal.

Good morning.

MS. DEAL: Good morning. I'm Jeanine

Deal. I live in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Regarding Case No. U-18120, it is my

view that full disclosure by public utility companies

to customers regarding equipment must be added to the

Consumer Standards and Billing Practices for Electric

and Natural Gas Service Rules.

If a public utility customer asks any

questions about metering technology, the public utility

company must be obliged to give all the information

possible on the equipment to the customer.

I argue that public utility customers

have a right to know exactly what public utility

companies propose to install on homes and businesses.

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This is my view because new natural gas

meters are not called smart meters. They're called AMR

ERT. Some refer to them as a Trojan horse because they

do not look like a transmitting meter but indeed they

are.

When we asked the installers on two

separate occasions how frequently these new meters

transmitted, instead of telling us that they

transmitted over 450,000 times per month, they told us

that they transmit only once per month. That's a huge

discrepancy in my opinion.

I was already avoiding cell phone use

because of a sensitivity I had developed to radio

frequency radiation. I could not hold a cell phone to

my ear without feeling constant pain so I had stopped

putting the phone to my ear and the pain went away,

only to return two years later after AMR ERT natural

gas meters were installed.

Had the utility company, the natural gas

company, been obliged to give us full disclosure we

would have refused installation.

According to the proposed new rules, our

natural gas provider would have turned our natural gas

service off and it could have been done without notice.

It is my opinion that here in Michigan that rule could

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prove to be catastrophic for public utility customers.

If it is in the winter and below

freezing it could be a matter of hours before pipes

begin to freeze and burst resulting in loss of

property.

It is my view that a minimum of a 21-day

notice must be given to public utility customers prior

to any shutoff, for any reason whatsoever.

It is also my view that an analog meter

choice be added to the new rules. As evidenced by the

Oversight Committee Hearing in December of 2014, and

perhaps maybe half of the people here, there is a

growing number of people in Michigan unable to tolerate

new metering technology.

I cannot tolerate AMR ERT meters, but

our natural gas provider has no analog choice. I argue

that it is our right to choose what radio frequency

radiation and electro-magnetic field emitting devices

are in and on our homes.

To reiterate, I would like full

disclosure by public utility companies to customers

regarding equipment. I would like a minimum of a

21-day notice given to public utility customers prior

to any and all shutoffs for any reason, and I would

like an analog meter choice for those who are suffering

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with this new illness, new condition called

electro-magnetic sensitivity. Thank you.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Thank you, Ms. Deal.

Georgetta Livingston.

Good morning.

MS. LIVINGSTON: My name is Georgetta

Livingston. I live in Clarkston.

I have to say ahead of time I just came

from a business date last night at midnight, and I went

to bed at 2:30. I got up 5:00 so I'm very tired,

however; I want to get my point across. I appreciate

very much given this opportunity to express our

experiences. It's not a opinion, it's what we live

day-by-day.

I do reiterate everything which has been

said before because I experience it on my own whatever

they say in a different way.

There is no record that what has

happened to me even happened. I don't exist to DTE, to

MPSC, to the legislature, to the AG, to the governor.

The utility DTE never gave me anything in writing, as

existing rules, requirements, nothing before, nothing

after.

After they cut off my power in 2014,

July, they did not give me any information as to how I

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could resolve this, who to call, who to file a

complaint to, nothing. There is no line item for my

situation in the current Rule 133 of reporting

requirements.

Where was the shutoff reported in DTE's

2014 Rule 133 report? I had no delinquent bill

recorded in my account. There is a small, considered

to be a small group of individuals whose body reacted

immediately to the radio frequency radiation. Though

we are small, we do exist. Our voice, our rights to

save energy, has been denied.

We need a written and electronic

detailed receipt each time there's a contact with the

utility, especially when they enter our property.

What I will share next is why I say what

I do, what I do. I reiterate, I agree with what has

been said. The rules are written in mind to protect

the utility company and exclude, disregard completely

the customer, and they are meant for customer

delinquent on their bill.

Where is the rule holding accountable

the utility companies? What is the rule that prevents

utility company to violate a constitutional right, the

Constitution of the United States and of the Michigan

that requires that every rule of legislation to be, to

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consider the health of the individual?

I'm a very energetic person. I have a

Ph.D. and two masters degrees in engineering, and I

taught mechanical engineering for 14 years. I knew

nothing about smart meters. I never heard the term.

And I thought that DTE is a very reputable company that

I gave high respect until it happened.

In 2011 without full disclosure, with

misleading and misguiding statements of absolute

benefit of these new meters, having no ideas, I -- all

of us allowed them to install them. Soon after that,

the bill almost doubled.

I called DTE and I complained and they

raised their voice. They treat you like you are a

non-human person. What is MPSC's role in regulating

their behavior? The cost, I believe, as a very

educated professional, though not in the electrical

field but did have related courses, that the technology

that they use to bill the customer is fraudulent. The

mathematic algorithm must be checked and verified by a

very specialized third party that can verify the rates.

I feel a company shouldn't bill such high rates.

A few months after that I got very ill.

90 percent of my body still was covered with something

like a rash, insomnia, palpitation. I am very healthy.

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I didn't know what it was.

I happened to receive a medical

newsletter, unsolicited, in which a medical doctor

described a high frequent number of patients coming

with unknown symptoms. Treated they did not respond, I

did not respond, from step to step, and go straight to

the radio frequency radiation which altered in turn,

provided, gave this kind of effect, health -- adverse

health effect that leads it to cancer.

As soon as the individuals removed the

meter, which thousands of them now do across the

nation, states have legislation that allow customers to

choose the analog meter which is equally harmful, but

the analog, the electromechanical meter without any

consequences. And I knew personally individuals in

other states that request to remove the new meter with

the old analog, and it was done without any commotion.

So I continue with this, I notified DTE

about my health condition. They totally ignore it. It

was a long process of communication. They totally

treat you as a non-human. That's why I said we, we

don't exist. We are real people, flesh and blood, and

we have to suffer unsolicited invasion of our primary

body by these radio frequency waves into our home.

This is not the right of DTE. That's a violation.

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So I would like to see Michigan Public

Service Commission, it serve, it's meant to serve the

public. That's what's stated, that's what's it is. If

Michigan Public Commission abdicate their role to serve

the public you should change the name, dissolve it and

whatever organization you want to support DTE against

the human.

So summarizing my story again, it was

not enough that I got very ill. Then I as a result of

non-response from DTE, I had to protect my health and

my home, I had to purchase -- I notified them, I told

them several times, I had to replace the smart meter

with an analog meter, newly purchased.

As a result of this it was a most

incredible thing. That same day it was the happiest

days in my life. No anxiety, nervousness, just

invisible huge invasion of your health, of your mental

health. It's undescribable. But as a result of this,

DTE turned off my power while I was at work on the 10th

of July 2014. And ever since, I don't have any power.

Because winter is coming, you can't

survive a winter in Michigan, I live on other sources

of power, solar panels, and you have paid by our tax

payer money, but I have to pay for my, the association

communicated with DTE eventually they file a lawsuit by

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me hundreds of dollars per day for having the solar

panels and they file a lawsuit asking the court to

dispossess me from my property because I try to

survive.

So I, and many people like me that are

treated as criminals, but we are law abiding, we are

not delinquent, we pay for the service, but we have a

choice. Die by radio frequency through serious

illnesses, end up ending of life, people burned alive,

any other issues with that, or choose, in my choice

alternative sources of energy and you are criminalized

for that and spend money in court now to survive.

I supply space in the record cold

winter, no heat in the house, no electricity, no water,

nothing. Everything we build a house and its power

driven. Where is the rules that protect the customers

against such abuses? So it's DTE who discriminates

against citizens like me because their body gets sick

because of this radio frequency. So they deny service.

They instigate home association to disposess [sic] and

force me into homelessness; for what? What is the

crime we did? How does Michigan Public Service

Commission protect citizens like me for their struggle

to survive without inflicting any range or pain or in

justice or harm to anyone else.

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What is our protection? We are flesh

and blood. We are citizens just like you. We pay you

to protect us. And we want to be considered and

treated as citizens and human beings. We do want to

eliminate this monopoly. Give us the right to have

other suppliers of powers. I have no regard and no

respect, no consideration for DTE by how they treated

me and many other people.

And I would like the analog meter back

as many others, not what they consider opt-out. It's

totally distrustful. I would like Public Service

Commission to investigate in their algorithm of

charging customers. It's over-charging and this is

improper.



Ms. Livingston.

John Kurczewski.

Good morning.

MR. KURCZEWSKI: Hello. I want to thank

the MPSC for allowing us to submit our comments

regarding these proposed rule changes.

I have seen the suffering. I'm not --

I'm spiritual though, but I'm not way, way, way, you

know supreme spiritual. I have witnessed a dear friend

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of mine go through hell. She was close to death. The

effects from the EMF radiation that were coming off

that digital meter nearly killed her.

Now I don't understand why this

Commission, this very Commission heard from a

nationally recognized expert, Dr. David Carpenter, a

Harvard trained doctor who specializes in environmental

medicine. He testified under oath before this

Commission specifically that there are health dangers

associated with these smart meters. I, I wouldn't have

believed it myself but I saw it.

I've told people, I says in my lifetime,

and I'm 67 years old, in my lifetime I think that's the

closest thing that I'm ever going to witness in my life

that would be considered a miracle. This woman, after

her husband went, because the Consumer Powers would not

remove her meter, and when her husband said I can't

watch my wife suffer no longer. He got a meter, an

analog, he put it on the house.

The next day his wife went right down to

the doctors when they did and she did jumping jacks.

They could not believe that they were watching the same

patient. They were stunned.

And furthermore, the, as I originally

wrote back in June, it is inhumane and possibly illegal

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according to the United Nations Charter which the U.S.

signed and is a member to impose needless suffering on

an individual. These utilities, they have proof, they

have scientific evidence behind them, they have

doctors' letters behind them saying -- and by the way

the Americans with Disabilities has now listed

electro-sensitivity as a qualifying disability. This

is stunning to me.

This is -- somebody's finally

starting to listen. I would hope this Commission

would have least listen and maybe take another look at

Dr. Carpenter's testimony who is concise and clear.

This is, this is an expert. This Commission chose to

take the side of the utility companies. I've gone to,

I've gone to many board meetings where the utilities

come in and they hold up the meter and say these are

perfectly safe. I even told one, I says that man is

lying to you, and I base that on the testimony that

this Commission received.

It's, there has to be a rule to address

for medical health people. These people, these people

pay their bills there on time. And it's my

understanding that in the rules, the only reports that

the utilities are required to make are for

disconnections -- I mean for non-payment, behind on

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their bills. These people are not behind on their

bills. They've paid. They're good citizens and

they're being just crippled.

I saw this woman go from walking, to a

cane, to a walker, to a wheelchair, to being

home-bound. It's, we should not have to live like

this. It's just, it's not, it's not conceivable.

And if I may speak to some of the other

people that have mentioned, I think the utilities ought

to be obligated to inform residents. If they're going

to put this technology, I think it's, it's almost --

not almost, I think it's mandatory that they let

customers know the dangers which has been proven by

sworn testimony to this Commission.

There are -- I have done homework on

this for one year. That's when my friend was cut off.

And they're still suffering without power today because

Consumer's Energy refuses under any circumstance, under

any circumstance to have an analog meter to save her

life.

Thank you very much for listening.


Mr. Kurczewski.

Jaime Chimner.

Good morning.

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MS. CHIMNER: Good morning. Thank you

for allowing us to come and talk. And I'm that woman

he was talking about. I almost died from that digital

meter. And Mr. McKee would not look at my four

doctors' letters that I have right here. He smirked at

us.

Going back to the beginning, my name is

Jaime Chimner. I live in Cheboygan, Michigan. And I

never thought in my life that I would have to deal with

this but here I am. They said just, just speak from my

heart. That's all I know. Consumer's Energy almost

killed me and they think it's funny.

Well, I couldn't walk. I started out

with a pain, then I got a cane, then I got a walker,

and then I got a wheelchair. I couldn't even function

as a wife to my new husband who had to carry me. I

gained 35 to 40 pounds of fluid between January 2015

and August 20th of 2015. I had to have, buy all new

clothes. I had -- it was, it was terrible. I had

sharp pain going through my whole body for the last two

years before a year ago.

I was, I was ready, I had given up on

life and I was ready to take my own life. Had my

husband not done what he did, and he pulled the meter,

he pulled the breaker on the meter and he said I'm

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turning off the electricity, and I've learned not to

ask why. And I went to bed crying in pain as I did

every night.

And I woke up that next day and I could

walk. I could feel my body. I was jumping up and down

at 6:30 in the morning, going Joe, we've to go to the

doctor right now, I know he's in, I have to show him

this. It was the meter. We've suffered so long, six

years, and it was the meter.

And the meter was replaced in 2006

because they accused my husband of stealing

electricity. And he worked on the Great Lakes

freighters for 11, 12 months out of the year, he was

never home. So they changed, they said well, to better

monitor our electricity, we'll put this digital meter

on. And he said okay. He didn't -- this was in 2006.

That was the year they started putting in the switch

mode power supply. I believe we had one of those.

And that's -- the minute we got married,

October 10th, 2009, and a few months before that we

lived together, I had started in my groin, went down to

all parts of my body such severe pain to the point

where my whole body was, was suffering. And my doctors

had no idea what to do.

We did the research. And when they came

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in and said they were bringing in smart meters, my

husband did a lot of research. And my friend John did

a lot of research, and he said -- he didn't tell me

what the research was because I didn't want to know. I

was suffering enough. I couldn't leave my house. I

haven't seen my children in four years.

But when he pulled that meter, when he

turned off that meter and said it's the digital meter,

I was -- I cried, and I was just so happy to be able to

move. And no one, no one should have to suffer like

that when they don't have to. He ordered an analog

meter and we sent back the digital meter to Mr. Dan

Malone with all the legal paperwork we were told to

send by the company we ordered it from.

And Mr. McKee showed up. He called and

said we need to talk. I said we're having a public

meeting today, come, that's where I'll be. He said

well, I'll be there.

So in front of about 50 people he said

you either take this digital meter or we're going over

and cutting off your power. And I said I will not

choose between life and death, and you will wait until

tomorrow morning -- until tomorrow afternoon at 2:00,

no sooner, no later.

So the next morning we woke up as soon

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as we could and we started making phone calls. We must

have called 25, 30 people, organizations. Nobody could

help us. Mr. McKee smirked and laughed at us because

we had health problems. There were other people there.

No man who is doing public relations for a company

laughs at somebody who is suffering.

And it's -- we called the MPSC to have

an investigation done on Mr. McKee. He was terrorizing

me, saying if you don't take this I'm cutting your

electricity. Do you know how terrorizing that feels?

When you're suffering so much anyway, and you find a

meter that you can live with, and they're going to tell

me I can't have it, I have to die? And God forbid when

the analog gas meters aren't there anymore, what are we

going to do? What are the hundreds of people like me

going to do?

And they're so many more out there. I

have people calling our house saying how do I get this

smart meter off my house? How do I get this digital

meter off my house? And I say I don't know. I'm

trying. I have to think of the court and I don't have

any money. But I don't have electricity.

September 11th of 2015, Mr. Dennis McKee

said you either take this digital meter or I'll cut

your power, and I said cut it at the pole. You stand

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here and wait for a bucket truck. And that whole time

he just stood there and just smiled at me. And I

couldn't take it anymore and I just left and left my

husband to deal with it.

But there should be, you're taking off

the -- I don't know, I've had a brain injury, excuse

me, so I have a little trouble understanding certain

things, and I received this when I walked in and I'm

not fully familiar with all of that. But I do know the

discrimination rule that you're going to take out is

wrong. You need to, you have to leave that in. You

have to give people a place to be able to complain and

say -- I have four doctors' letters, they're saying she

cannot live with an analog meter. No one should have

to live without electricity, without a refrigerator,

without water, without natural gas.

My God, what do we have to do to get an

analog meter? That's all I want. I worked as an EMT

for 16 years and I saw a lot of bad things but I took

care of those people. And now I need help, and I don't

know how to help myself because the MPSC has charged us

for investigating us when we told them everything.

Excuse me, I can't see through my tears.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Take your time.

MS. CHIMNER: I am chemically sensitive.

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I have many medical problems which the digital meter

intensified. I am now electro-magnetic sensitized. I

have to watch -- I have a mask that I wear. I have it

with me because if someone has perfume -- thank you --

any kind of chemicals I'll go right down to the floor.

I don't have anything that's normal so

it's hard for Consumer's to understand it and I don't

think they would try anyway. I can't have a transmit

meter. We've gone to the water company in our town who

were going to put in the water meters and they said

we're not going to put one on your house. He said

we're letting anybody who doesn't want them, we're not

going to give them to them. I've done research, I'm

not going do that to you, you don't have to worry about

the water, we'll make it safe for you, at least for the

water.

Now why can't my electric company for

the small amount of people who need these meters, why

can't they get over their ego that Mr. McKee has that

we had to deal with and just give me an analog meter or

there's not that many people. They're, you can't hack

into them very easily I've heard. And there's,

they're, just the other day there -- someone else will

be mentioning that.

But I shouldn't have to choose between

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life and death, and that's where I'm at. I can't

afford to take them to court. But they won't -- and I

guess if death is the alternative then put the analog

back -- the digital back on my house because I don't

know how I'll make it through another winter. I don't

know how that woman's made it through two winters. I

mean I've been to the ER because I can't run -- I have

severe asthma, I can't run my nebulizer or any machines

that I need, my two special air cleaners that I need to

filter my air because I'm so chemically sensitive. I

can't run any of these. My asthma has gotten worse.

My doctors don't know what to do because

Consumer's Energy won't work with them or me. And I

just don't know what else to do but to come here and

tell you my story and tell you that some of these rules

have to stay in there to protect the consumer because

we're not -- because if they become a monopoly, DTE and

Consumer's Energy or whatever, we won't have a choice

for anything. And what will happen to those people

like me who will die if I don't have an analog meter?

And that's no exaggeration. I'll give you the four

doctors letters. Please --

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Ms. Chimner, I'm so

sorry to interrupt you. I'm worried that we don't have

enough time for everybody who's present to come up, but

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I do want to thank you very much for appearing. If you

have a few more minutes that will be fine, but you may

also submit written comments.

MS. CHIMNER: I have, I have.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Okay. Thank you.

MS. CHIMNER: But I thank you for giving

us the opportunity to come and speak. And if John

hadn't been so right to my heart I wouldn't be crying

here right now. But he put it the way it was, I either

live or die, and it's in your hands. That's all I can

say.



Ms. Chimner.

Nancy Shules.

MS. SHULES: Good morning.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Good morning.

MS. SHULES: I'm a fortunate one who

lives in Presque Isle County and they have informed us

that they won't be doing smart meters. However, my

daughter lives in Traverse City and we put a little

sign up on the meter saying no smart meter with the tie

wrap, and the guy walked on the property, cut it all

off, took the meter off the house, and put in a digital

meter. So we went through the process of opting out,

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did everything they told us to do, and they came back

and put in an opt-out meter, which is virtually a

digital meter.

So I don't understand why I can go to

the YMCA and choose what bathroom I want to use, but I

don't get to choose what meter I want on a home that I

own. It just seems wrong to me, that in this country

we have choices, and this is not a choice.

And I was at the same meeting with Jaime

and Dennis McKee stood there and smirked at us and

laughed at us. And he is -- it's just wrong that

anyone in his position would treat a group of 60 people

who came to protest the way he did.

And like I said I'm lucky, I have an

analog meter. We get a bill every month and at the

bottom of it we put down what the meter reader says,

and once a year they come around and, you know, verify

and write if we have paid too much, they compensate, et

cetera. So I don't get why people can't have an analog

meter and read it themselves. We -- I've done this for

years.

The guy at, in Traverse City told us

that it's going to cost more money to put in a digital

meter because they man will have to get out of his

vehicle and walk up to the house to read it instead of

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being able to do it from, the smart meter from his car.

And to me if they are so lazy that they can't get out

of their car and walk to the house, then they should

let my daughter fill it a form and send it to them

every month. There's a simple solution to this: Let

us have a choice.

Thank you.


Ms. Shules.

Jim McKindles.

Good morning.

MR. MCKINDLES: Good morning. I too was

at that meeting with Mr. McKee and he was an arrogant

SOB is my opinion.

Anyhow, what I'm here to do is I want to

talk about the money, the money that the politicians

are receiving from these mega corporations is obscene,

especially the Senator, Meekhof. I know it's not part

of what we're doing today but it boils down to money.

And I think it also it could be involving with the MPSC

as far as the monies that could be flowing through

their coffers somehow, through these mega corporations.

And everybody has already spoke about,

spoken about more, much of what I wanted to speak about

so I don't want to, you know, do it again.

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But I think we need choice, not only

meter choice but choice of which companies we want.

There's a, we have a 90 percent monopoly status

according to the MPSC rules that the mega corporations

can do. And in Ohio they're paying about a third of

what most of us here in Michigan are paying because

they have choice is the, is what I can think of. So

it's all about choice, not only the meter but the

utility company that serves us.

Thank you.


Mr. McKindles.

Kathy Johnson.

Good morning.

MS. JOHNSON: Good morning. My name is

Kathy Johnson. I live in Livingston County. And I

do understand that we are here today regarding Case

No. U-18120; however there's a few things that are

being changed within this document that I feel open the

door relative to smart meters.

As far as R 460.113 that discusses the

meter reading procedures and accuracy of the meters,

I'd like to know why it is being stricken, the fact of

estimated billings. And within that same section of

the document, it comes on to say that they need

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accurate billings. And under iii, it says: The

utility may install a remote meter, actual meter

reading device, or other similar devices. Why is the

MPC allowing these corporations to create rules within

our state that we have to follow that the federal

government doesn't even mandate? The federal

government does not mandate to any state that people

have to have smart meters from these corporations, but

yet the big corporations in Michigan are trying to get

you, our elected officials, to shove this down our

throats, and it's not right.

There's too many problems with these

meters that they're not disclosing to people. As far

as the meters themselves -- let me look at my notes,

just a moment -- as far as the meters we have been

trying the public to try and get a rule changed where

we don't have just an opt-out for the meters, we want

an opt-out along with keeping the analog meters.

However, a few of our elected officials in Lansing

won't even bring this bill to even be discussed on the

floor in order for our, our rights to be heard. It's

all stalled, and they won't bring it before anybody.

But yet everybody in Lansing is there because we voted

them in. Where is, where is our representation?

As far as the MPC -- MPSC, it's like

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everything that's in this document is benefiting

nothing but the utility company and there's nothing in

it that benefits the person that is paying for the

utility.

And as far as these smart meters go,

they want to put it on our house. And even with the

opt-out, it is sending dirty electricity through our

house on a 24-hour a day basis. They may have the

meter turned off that transmits the data to their

company, but on a 24-hour a day basis that meter is

running because there's now two legs of this meter

versus one that only showed usage, there's a leg coming

in, a leg going out and that electricity is constantly

going through the house sending the data back to the

meter. That part still functions even though the radio

frequency is off.

My grandson who has tinnitus, never had

a problem. My daughter thought she should have opted

for the opt-out meter. She got that put in her house.

Ever since then he's had problems. He never complained

about tinnitus, never. Now he's complaining and raging

migraines and problems with this tinnitus that he's

never had before. That meter is directly below his

bedroom window on the outside wall of the home.

There's no reason he should have to suffer from that.

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Another thing that the corporations are

doing, being DTE, is they're not telling anybody that

these meters take electricity now to run, and what they

have done with these meters is they have taken the

electrical part of it that cost to run it, and they're

put it on the Consumer's part of the meter so we're not

only having them shoved down our throat, but we're

paying to run our own meter, which is why these bills

are going up. That is not fair.

If these meters were safe, they should

be forced to put the charges to run the new meter

because they chose to make it that way on their side of

it. So they're getting a raise that way and it's my

understanding that they're trying to get raises in

their electrical fees on top of this. That is not

right.

I don't want this meter. I don't want

the health ramifications from this meter, and I think

that everybody involved, being from yourself, the MPSC,

they should be representing us, the people, and not big

business, and not DTE and Consumer's Energy.

It's my understanding also that I have

DTE and I have Consumer's. Consumer's cannot put a

smart meter on my home because they don't own my

electrical. If they owned my electrical, if I had both

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of them, they could put both on. But because they

don't own my electrical, they can not put a smart meter

on my gas meter because it takes money to run and they

can't run it through DTE's electrical and have those

fees go through there.

So maybe eventually they're going to try

and change territories to where everything's under one

territory, then they could just smart meter everybody.

But I personally do not want these meters and I think

that the representatives, the elected representatives

should start listening to the public not only for their

well-being in the future being re-elected but also as

far as our health problems. You are here to represent

us, not DTE and Consumer's.

Thank you.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Thank you very much

Ms. Johnson.

Sandy Taylor.

Good morning.

MS. TAYLOR: Good morning.

I didn't prepare a speech. I'm just

going to speak to you a little bit from my heart.

I too feel, I don't mean to throw a

knife at the Commission when I say this, but I truly

believe with all my heart that the MPSC is supporting

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DTE and that they don't give a damn about us. They're

force their agendas down our throat. They're going to

force their meters down our throat. I don't want them.

A little bit about what happens to me on

a daily basis, it's been so for a couple years. I go

outside and if I see a DTE truck, my hands start

shaking, I start shaking all over, thinking, oh my, God

are they going to put one of those on my home? Well,

they finally showed up, and I had a guy tell me a

couple weeks ago, you know, we're just going to keep

coming back, and we're going to put it on when you're

not here.

Well, I don't care if they're here or

not. I have a cage, I have a lock. So what, they're

going to disconnect my power? They're going to punish

me because I don't want that meter on my home. That

meter emits radiation 24/7. That's not a good thing.

And you will hear the electric company

say the meter is ours, the box is yours. Well, fine,

the house that they want to put it on is mine. Don't I

have a say about what gets put on my home?

I feel threatened by it. I feel unsafe

by it, yet I feel like it's being shoved down my

throat. That's not the America I know and I want to

know what's going on. And why, why -- and I agree

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everything that I'm seeing in that document, it's all

to protect DTE. What about us, don't we matter? I

guess not. There's a bigger agenda here than that.

There's no reason for this. It's

inexcusable the way we're being treated. I don't know

what's going to happen to me, and I look at it this

way: Part of what is being taken is there is the

statement if something is hazardous or unsafe, and they

can deem whatever that is. They can create that to be

whatever it is. You have a lock on your meter, that's

unsafe. I talked to the fire department chief, the

inspector, he said that's not a problem. He said they

carry bolt cutters around. If they had to cut the cage

and the lock they can do that instantly. So that is

not a threat. How can they come up with that being a

possible threat? So that's not true.

And I think that these rules that are

being put in there is everything to support them to be

able to do or say whatever they want, whatever it

takes, whatever it takes to get that meter on our

homes.

We don't want it. Why do we've to have

it? And why is it their choice? There should be a

choice and it shouldn't have to be the same meter which

is the non-transmitting meter so they say.

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And another thing I feel, since they

emit radiation 24/7, which they do, I got to thinking

about this one day from a logical point of view. I

don't care about degrees everybody has, this is just a

common sense statement to me. When you go to the

doctor's office or your dentist's office, to get a scan

for a tooth, those people get the heck out of the

office. They get out of there as fast as they can so

they aren't exposed to that radiation for that

momentary period of time.

Same thing with chest x-rays, when you

go for chest x-rays, they get out of there, because

radiation affects human bodies. We're biological.

Yet, they can put that meter on our home, and run it

24/7 on us, and that's okay. Does that even make

sense? That doesn't even make sense to me that that

can possibly be. And I can't understand how people

can't see that.

So what I would say to you is I hope you

can look past some of this, re-evaluate what's only

going on, what's happening. We do need people to look

out for us. Big business isn't always the best thing.

This is an example of it. I think we should have a

choice on the utility companies, we should have a

choice on the meters. We shouldn't have to beg for

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something like this.

Look at the poor lady crying her heart

out. Tell me that that wasn't real. And Georgetta,

listening to what these people say. How much farther

does it have to go? Other states have kicked these

out, run them out I know Brady, Texas kicked them out.

It's because they're being proven there's problems with

them. I don't know why Michigan can't do it too. Just

give us a choice, this is what I ask.

Thank you.


Ms. Johnson.

Carole Garcia.

Good morning.

MS. GARCIA: Good morning, your Honor.

My name is Carole Garcia. I give in Bruce Township.

And I'm here in regards to the, basically here to

request some changes to the rules. I happen to be EHS

sensitive, so I can relate to Georgette and the other

young lady that has health issues. I've had to move

out of my home. I went through total hell trying to

deal with DTE, sent them letters, sent them my medical

documents from my three medical doctors, two from

Beaumont Hospital stating they do not want me to have

any of these devices on my home.

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These devices are microwave radiation

devices. They're on 24/7. It's like sitting in a CAT

Scan and MRI 24/7. And this is not me, this is per

medical doctors who study this field.

Dr. Barrie Trower, he talks about this

technology. It's all wireless. So cell phones, WiFi,

smart meters, they're not smart at all but they're

microwave radiation devices. This is all microwave

radiation devices, the cell towers as well. He said

anybody even that puts this in the school should be

locked up for life because it affects the children.

And it has affected me terribly. I mean

like I say I moved from Sterling Heights to Rochester

Hills. When I lived in Sterling Heights I had no

meters, I was healthy, fine. I moved to Rochester

Hills, and after a little over a month I started to

have health issues; bloody nose, headaches, vertigo,

insomnia, heart palpitations. I didn't know what was

going on.

And a friend of mine read an article and

said, it talked about these advanced meters that DTE

was putting on homes. And she said do you have this

and I said: Well, what is it? So I went out and

looked. Not only did I have one, but I had two on my

bedroom wall.

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And I did everything I possibly could do

in a diplomatic way, sent them letters, sent things to

MPSC, Aric Nesbitt, the whole nine yards, and I never

got no responses back from anybody.

So my doctors basically said you cannot

live like this. My oncologist at Beaumont has

diagnosed me with stem cell disorder. And right now

being in this room right now I'm starting to get a

bloody nose. I've been wiping it because that's how

sensitive I am to this. I'm EHS sensitive.

My house in Rochester, I tried moving

downstairs to get away from the bedroom, it didn't

help. However, if I went to Brighton, Michigan to

visit my brother where they have none, or I went to see

friends of mine who didn't have them, my health, it's

like you come back to life. I can't explain it,

because with the meters I feel brain fog. I can just

go over some of the symptoms: Brain fog, headache,

bloody nose, nausea, insomnia, heart palpitations like

where your heart feels like it's going like this, I

can't explain it. It's almost like anxiety. And I

have low blood pressure so it's not normal.

And so I had to move out of Rochester,

my home in Rochester to Brownstown Township and the

reason I moved there because there was no smart meter.

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I had a well, so I didn't have to worry about a smart

microwave radiating water heater, that's worse. And

gas, I don't have Consumer's Energy so I don't have to

worry about that because I talked to them about it and

they do not have that on my house, I have an analog.

I'm here for meter choice, to fight

this, that we have a meter choice, that we have a

voice. DTE is like a dictatorship dictating to us what

we've got to have on our homes. People that are EHS

sensitive or people that have medical devices, this

affects horribly, terribly. I mean something's got to

be done. We need people working for us, not working

for the big utility companies, and that's what's going

on right now.

I had to retire from my job at General

Motors because of the technology downtown after 39

years. I wanted to work longer because I'm still quite

young, but I had to retire. And I do medical mission

trips. I have a medical background as well.

This has, this has got to stop.

Something's got to be done. MPSC has to help us

because DTE is, I mean DTE is being, it's -- they're so

big that they don't care. They feel they can do

whatever they want to do and nobody's going to check

them at it.

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Well, if you go into the FOIA request

because I had family members that are in law, you can

find out that DTE has given lot of our state

legislators money for their campaigns, and under the

table too, and this has been proved. And you guys have

to help us because we've got people suffering.

I mean I can show you right now on this

meter. I have to carry this where ever I go. It

should be in green. It's in red. We are all being

radiated right now. This is microwave radiation. We

are all being inundated and I know immediately because

my nose starts to bleed.

My daughter-in-law is a teacher and in

her school is WiFi. My grandson, she was carrying my

grandson at the time. My grandson was born with a very

rare cataract in his right eye. My son and daughter

had WiFi in their house, and we had one of the guys

come over and test the house where the smart meter is

connected to the fuse box. It's under my grandson's

room. And he is now 17 months old, starting to get

bloody noses. That's how I started.

I mean I've got make-up on and I'm

dressed and this and that and everything, but this

stuff kills me. I can't have it. As soon as I moved

to my new home they came out and put that meter on my

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home. And I called and they said: Well, there's

nothing you can do.

I mean somebody's got to help us. I

mean we're, we're the -- how do I want to say this, the

canary in the coalmine, so to speak. It shouldn't be

that way because medical doctors that study this,

Dr. Carpenter, Dr. Trower and so many, many more have

stated that this stuff, this technology, this microwave

radiation that we are all being exposed to causes

cancer, Parkinson's disease, dementia, leukemia, and

those are the long-term side effects. Short-term is

all the side effects I've given you and other people

here have given you.

There's people suffering all across the

country and they don't know why. Doctors that are

doctors, they don't know this technology. I have

brought tons and tons of information to my medical

doctors after, I mean I've been studying this stuff

like I'm studying for a test. I mean I have learned so

much. I've got people calling me: Carol, can you come

and test my house. John was nice enough to come to my

house to test it. I mean it was horrible in there.

John Holeton and Pauline, I owe my life to them.

But anyway I'm just, I mean something's

got to be done, your Honor. I mean we can't go on

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moving out of our homes, running from our homes. This

is our safe haven. We should be able to live there in

peace and harmony and not have to worry about if we're

going to live until next year because we're being

inundated so bad.

So I'm asking you to expand the rules

that Michigan residents can have a meter choice without

a fee. We can read our own readers, we're very

intelligent individuals. And that that be put on

there. That each person in Michigan can have a meter

choice if we want to keep our analogs or if we want to

have a advanced microwave radiating device.

I've got some papers I'll give to you as

well. There's many doctors. There's a biological and

health effects report on microwave radio frequency,

it's about this thick. It's from medical doctors who

study only this in the field. And they tell you,

everything you're hearing here today, they are telling

the same thing, that this stuff is bad.

Dr. Barrie Trower said that they used

the microwave radiation technology back in the navy

during the war against the enemy. Well, you know, we

must be the enemy to DTE because they are using it on

us. I've talked to Jim McCormick, I've talked to

Robert Sitkauskus. You don't know how many letters,

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I've reached out. I'm totally exhausted now.

So please, I ask you please help all of

us and the tens of thousands out there all around the

country that are suffering from this and as well as

what these cell towers they are putting in our

neighborhoods. This is all microwave radiation.

Thank you so much.


Ms. Garcia.

Deanna Gilbert.

MS. HILBERT: Hilbert.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Oh, excuse me, yes,

Deanna Hilbert.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Hello. My name is

Deanna Hilbert, H-i-l-b-e-r-t. I'm sorry, my printing

is bad.


MS. HILBERT: I just, I wanted to

discuss the need for expansion update for the rules

regarding especially electric shutoffs. I appreciate

this opportunity.

I'm a registered nurse and have come to

know many people with health issues related to the new

AMI meters. Many of these people had their electricity

shut off or have been threatened by DTE, Consumer's,

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and some of the companies that are contracted with

these companies.

There just seems to be a different rule,

different process, almost in every situation. Many

people have gotten letters saying they have to choose

opt-out or, you know, may have their electricity shut

off. Some of these people have gotten, you know,

notices of a time when they could be shutoff, some have

not. Some people have gotten telephone calls. Some

people have had people come to their doors, others have

not.

There have been elderly and many

individuals with poor health who have had their

electricity shut off without notice. Some of them had

their electricity shut off where they have important

medical equipment for life, you know, to sustain their

life, or refrigeration for life-sustaining medication.

There just seems there has to be a consistent process

to the shutoff process.

So in a different vain I wanted to share

a story of an elderly woman who felt threatened by DTE.

She choice the opt-out. She paid the fee for the

opt-out. She paid her monthly fee. And then she's

getting estimated bills. So like I just don't -- it

does just doesn't, nothing seems to really add up.

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There's definitely a need for this, an update this.

Then I just wanted to share my

experience with DTE this year. At the end of July I

received a letter that I had to choose between the

opt-out or a smart meter, and if I ignored this that I

may, and I quote, may get my electricity shutoff. I

made several calls. I could not find anybody at DTE

who would talk to me or the smart meter department.

I was eventually directed to the fraud

department and I spoke to somebody there. I told the

woman I'm going out of town on a vacation out of the

country for three days. I requested an appointment,

you know, I was willing to go with the opt-out,

requested an appointment to set it up right away or

when I returned. And I was refused and I was told if I

do not allow access to my meter while I was gone I

could possibly have my electricity shutoff while I was

out of the country.

So I have sensitive electronic equipment

in my home, I felt it was important that I was there to

make sure that the meter is shut off, the transmission

device. If I'm going to pay for that I feel it's my

right.

Now I've known individuals where it has

been shut off in the cases where they choose the

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opt-out. And I feel, you know, that this is important,

it should be my right if I'm going to do this.

I want to thank you for considering

changing the rules. I hope they'll be good changes

coming forth. It's time for the MPSC to represent the

citizens and not just the utilities.

I'm sure that you're aware there's

probably about 20 states allow for accommodations for

people with health issues, that allow analog options

and it's just no problem.

So thank you again. And --


Ms. Hillbert.

De Liddy.

Good morning.

MS. LIDDY: Good morning. My name is

Deborah Liddy and I live in Mount Morrissey County and

I'm here representing my 81 year old mother who has two

of these meters behind her chair and she can't move.

One of them is a gatherer which it emits 700,000 times

a second or a minute or whatever but my mother can't

walk. And my mother ran a motel for 28 years in

Harrison.

I'm also here to say this is extortion

and this is, as far as I'm concerned Tom Hartman on

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Free Speech TV said it the best: 20 percent of all the

CEOs in the United States of America are sociopaths

which means they have no empathy, they have no

compassion. They are gleaning more information off of

reading what your utilities are doing versus selling

the product themselves.

This to me is called Smartgate, and as

soon as I find a really good person that will take this

on, because I can't run a computer, and Mr. John

Kurczewski can, and all this is health effects. All

right. Right now as of 5/24/16, which I'm going to

head Cheboygan first because they just passed it,

resolutions passed against smart meters or in support

of HB 4916 for a choice for analog bills or analogs

which your company, your MPSC said these rules are

intended to promote safe and adequate service, which

they don't. It's extortion. It's heavy handedness.

It's terrorism.

These are the counties that have

changed. There's 41 one of them. There is Presque

Isle Republican Party. Oak Park. Livonia.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Wait, can you please

show down. Our court reporter can't type that fast.

MS. LIDDY: I'm sorry. I'm so upset.


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MS. LIDDY: Shelby Township. Macomb

County. City of Warren. Van Buren Township. City of

Southfield. Rochester. Ypsilanti. Brighton.

Rochester Hills. Oakland County. Brighton. Troy.

Sterling Heights. Vassar. Farmington Hills. Royal

Oak. Allegan County. Harrison Township. Village of

Reese. Grosse Pointe Woods. City of Caro. Almont.

Fairgrove. Dearborn Heights. Vassar. Romulus.

Clinton County Republican Party. Gratiot County

Republican Party. City of Allen Park. City of Taylor.

City of Lincoln Park. Charter Township of West

Bloomfield. Oakland County Republican Party. Grosse

Pointe Farms. Columbiaville. Lapeer County. City of

Brown City. Marathon Township. More are being passed

as citizens awareness is growing. And I'm adding

Cheboygen, thanks to Mr. John Kurczewski who has put

more effort into these efforts, which I know I'm going

to find a journalist and he's going to ask the: Who,

why, when, what the heck's going on?

This newspaper, which your Mr. McKee,

Oscoda Herald Times, Lucern Fire Chief Narrowly Loses

Home, Blames Meter. This is the picture of his meter.

Is Mr. McKee going to question a fire chief?

This is extortion. This is

heavy-handedness. This is terrorism. My mother is

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sick. I am sick. I can't work on a computer. I'm

also just as sick as the rest of these people and I

don't understand: When is enough? How much money is

enough? I just want to pay my bills and be safe. I

just want to be okay and so do all of these other

people, they just want to be okay. There's no reason

to be sick. It makes rashes, holes in your skin. The

end result, death. I can only hope that these

20 percent of these CEOs feel the effects of the same

thing that's going on here because it's in your future.

We're trying to help you.



Ms. Liddy.

Richard Meltzer.

Good morning.

MR. MELTZER: Good morning, your Honor.

Can I be heard in the back?

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Can you hear

Mr. Meltzer in the back?

MR. MELTZER: Can you hear me in the

back?

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Yes, now you can be

heard. Thank you.

MR. MELTZER: Thank you. I'm here today

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to comment on the proposed new MPSC rules defining

customer standards and billing practices. I'm going to

kind of touch on three key areas: Utility egregious

behavior, omissions in the rules, and rules that need

clarification.

And starting with the egregious

behavior, I'll tell my little story. DTE put me on a

smart meter deferred list several years ago but then

immediately tried to switch my meter the very next day.

That caused me to lock up my meter. DTE said doing

that was a hazard and repeatedly threatened to cut my

power.

So ultimately, by and by, many months

later, ultimately I made an appointment with the AMI

office for a meter swap. I wanted to be there so I

could remove the locking mechanism and keep an eye on

the installation. DTE did not respect my appointment

date. They changed out my meter when I was out of the

state, and my property suffered damage in their

forcible removal of the locking mechanism. And they

confiscated my locks and hardware though the AMI

manager denied that happened.

The kicker to this is they installed a

heavy-duty locking bolt on the meter housing box after

they swapped the meter. This in spite of saying

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repeatedly that a locked meter box is a safety hazard

and using that as a justification for threating to cut

the power.

And this is why Rule 460.137 is

completely inadequate. That would grant DTE the

ability to terminate service immediately since they've

described my locked meter as a hazard. That condition

is so hazardous that they themselves placed a

heavy-duty lock on the housing thereafter.

I checked with my fire department and

they said they did not have a key. So much for the

fire hazard.

This is the manner in which this

monopolistic bully operates.

My story frankly is trivial compared to

some of which you've heard and probably others that

will follow. But again, this kind of, the key word

that always comes to mind in the operation of these

utilities is arrogance. They know they've got you and

they sometimes say with disdain you don't have to take

electricity, that's a free choice. Being realistic in

today's world, one can get by without it, make

alternative arrangements but it's not easy, and for

most people it's probably out of the question.

Now moving on to some omissions, for

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example, number one: So what consequence does DTE

suffer for its egregious behaviors? I scanned the new

rules for the word fine. It came up only once and

without any detail. Similarly, I scanned for the word

penalty; I got back nothing for penalties for customers

who don't pay their bills.

MPSC rules need to assess sufficiently

severe penalties to curtail arbitrary and abusive

behavior on the part of the utility companies.

Another omission, Rule 460.130 regarding

shutoff protection. It only applies to critical care

customers who are delinquent with their bill paying.

No provision exists for customers trying to protect

themselves from the ill effects of radio frequency

radiation, or RFR, as are emitted by AMI smart meters.

Even now, that electro-hypersensitivity or EHS is

recognized as a genuine medical condition and included

in the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Here I ask the MPSC to take special note

of the new major National Institutes of Health study

that demonstrated cancer in laboratory animals exposed

to levels of RFR currently considered safe. The NIH is

the country's Gold standard for research.

Dr. Carpenter, who's name you've heard

several times this morning, described the study as a

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game changer, making it hard for naysayers to deny the

effects of RFR any longer.

Some people choose to buy organic food,

drink filtered water, take daily supplements, et

cetera, but their efforts are for naught when mandated

to live in an RFR emitting environment.

For those EHS people, Rule 140.137,

Section (i) that permits termination of power for not

allowing replacement of equipment, or removal of a

meter, is an extreme usurpation of one's liberty and

should not be allowed.

The only remedy in this case is to

exempt customers from their requirement of accepting an

AMI smart meter as a condition of service.

And three, this segues into another

omission. There is no mention in the rules regarding

the current opt-out program, nor any requirement that

customers be provided information regarding the health

and privacy controversies surrounding the AMI meters.

And I will also add that you will find

no reference to this at the MPSC website.

Now regarding privacy omissions, number

one, the utility should only collect the minimum data

required to calculate a customer's bill and perform

basis business functions and no more. With the coming

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of the Internet of things or IOT, every electrical

device large and small will generate data. When

captured by the AMI smart meter, a personal dossier of

every resident's behavior and schedule will be created.

This would be an infringement on our privacy.

Number two, I have some concern with the

lack of detail describing the granularity of the phrase

aggregate data regarding privacy. MIT studies have

shown that data made anonymous can still be attributed

back to an individual with a 90 percent accuracy.

Similar concern for the phrase

third-party, what if a subsidiary of DTE chooses to do

data mining and monetize this valuable data asset; is

that subsidiary a third party?

Four, rates should be completely

independent of these data assets. No rate incentive

nor any penalty, should be offered to leverage a

consumer's approval to share their data.

Now in terms of clarification, a key

area of confusion in the rules has to do with meter

reading. Rule 460.114 says in part that customer's can

self-report their energy usage. But the rule also

requires the utility obtain an actual reading at least

once a year. And then it says the utility company

representative may read meters on a regular basis. The

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contention here relates to the opt-out program wherein

DTE charges for a monthly meter reading.

It should be obvious that there is no

point in a customer reporting a reading if DTE

duplicates that effort and charges for it. Why is DTE

allowed to render the customer's option as meaningless?

Why can't an opt-out customer exercise its prerogative

of self-report within the opt-out program? Fix this

please.

I will also point out that in several

cases before the MPSC, Mr. Robert Sitkauskus, the

deployment AMI manager, testified that there was in

fact no functional difference between the old legacy

analog meter and a smart meter with the broadcast

feature disabled. He never provided a good explanation

as to why then would a customer be forced to accept the

smart meter.

Moving on, Rule 460.155 regarding

disputes, very brief criteria provided for the hearing

officer. Bios and qualifications of officers should be

available to confirm their competence and impartiality.

Rule 460.157 regarding customer hearing

procedures, Section (4) says, quote, "The utility has

the burden of proof by a preponderance of the

evidence," unquote. This rule needs substantive

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criteria, otherwise it will be arbitrarily interpreted.

Rule 460.162, customer hearing appeal

procedures, Section (2) says, "The regulation officer

shall not be required to receive or consider any

additional evidence or information." I find this rule

to be an affront to justice that should be eliminated,

though in reality the officer could listen to new

evidence and then ignore it, like that never happens.

Section (3) says, quote, "In all

customer hearing appeals, the utility has the burden of

proof, again by the preponderance of the evidence," and

again, this rule too needs substantive criteria,

otherwise it will be arbitrarily interpreted.

And in conclusion, we need an MPSC that

fulfills its mission and aggressively protects the

public's interests. Rules need to conform to the needs

of this state's citizens, not the dictates of large

utility companies who are not being held sufficiently

accountable.

In the matter of AMI smart meters, we

have laws, namely the Michigan Consumer Protection Act

and the U.S. Energy Act of 2005, among others that

state a smart meter is to only be accepted when

requested by a customer. MPSC rules need to

incorporate these requirements and respect the

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preferences of citizens of this state.

And thank you very much for your time

and attention.


Mr. Meltzer.

(Brief recess taken.)

JUDGE SONNEBORN: We are back on

the record continuing our public hearing in Case

No. U-18120 and we will proceed with Mr. John Diehl.

MR. DIEHL: Thank you.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Good morning.

MR. DIEHL: My name is John Diehl. I'm

from East Lansing, Michigan. And I do hope that Curtis

Hartell and Sam Singh, my state representative, do have

a chance to peruse the comments that were made today.

I going to talk a little bit, then I'm

going to read a little bit, but I won't be too long

here.

I just want to cover one basic area. In

reference to the meter boxes on our homes, and there's

legislation in this packet here, let me say beforehand

it seems to me that within this legislation there's a

lot of barriers that are set up for the residents of

Michigan to protect them from the power companies doing

things that they shouldn't be doing. It seems that

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this legislation will change those barriers, knock them

down, and allow the power companies to have much more

access and freedom to do what they want to do and

protection will be taken away from us. I'm sensing

that as I read through this and hear what's being said.

One thing I'll mention, we all have

metal boxes around our meters on our homes and

businesses, and those actual boxes, not the meter

itself, but the boxes are ours. When I bought my house

I paid for that box. And if I choose to lock it up to

keep people from tampering with my meter, or to keep

people from messing with it and so forth, then as far

as I understand that's my right. And it, it seems that

it, this legislation may make that illegal to protect

and lock up the metal box that surrounds my meter.

Now also I want to say that the power

companies can for a variety of reasons come on our

property and access our meter without notifying how

owners or businesses, notify owners of businesses. In

other words, it seems like the legislation in this

would change that and there would be a number of health

and safety issues stated, maybe of a huge variety of

those that would just allow power companies to come on

to a person's property or a home or a business and

change and, you know, have access to the meter, let me

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just say it that way, without notifying the individual

that owns the company or the home.

Let me just read this here what I wrote

down: Areas of health and safety designated in this

bill to allow meter access need to be consistent with a

high percentage of health and safety problems that have

been occurring in homes throughout Michigan, not

reasons that make no sense with the current history of

analog meters. And there should be no access without

homeowner consent. And as far as I understand, that

has never been a major problem in Michigan with analog

meters that there was a health and safety issue that

has to be attended to, that's not a major problem.

You know, so it seems like this bill

might change that and just line up a variety of reasons

for any power to come onto your property even without

consent and that should not happen.

Also, we citizens of Michigan must have

the right to see the final legislation and have say

again with reference to what are the health and safety

reasons a power company would want to, you know, access

our home or business and the meter area and so forth.

Now just to conclude, my concern is that

the power companies will create a wide variety of

reasons that make no sense to access my meter without

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notifying me.

Now one last comment, the, there's been

a lot of talk here, this is about smart meters and so

forth and I totally agree with what everybody says, it

again, it does seem like the power companies this

legislation would give more access for the power

companies to come on your property without consent and

do what they want to do to put smart meters in, but

what about the protection for the disabled? What about

protection for the elderly?

I have a son living in my residence

who's mentally and physically disabled. He does not

have, he does talk. He would not be able to tell us if

a smart meter -- I do not want it in my home, but if

so, he will not be able to indicate that me. He's not

going to indicate if he's having problems. How are we

going to protect the disabled and those that are in

this state that are handicapped or disabled and are in

center based schools because they're so disabled. How

are we going to protect them, you know, from this type

of problem?

So again, my concern in this bill is

that this legislation will, you know, just open up much

more free access to the power companies to do what they

want to do without consenting with the homeowners or

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business owners. So we do need have the ability to see

what is finalized in this bill and to begin and be able

to have maybe more further comment on that rather than

having it just, you know, finished without our look-see

and then put through.

Thank you.


Mr. Diehl.

MR. KURCZEWSKI: Excuse me for just a

minute. This is Mrs. Chimner who we have to take out

and wanted me to provide doctors letters.


David Lonier; have I pronounced that

correctly?

Good morning.

MR. LONIER: Good morning. David

Lonier. I live in Auburn Hills, Oakland County with my

wife, and roughly a year ago about this time we had our

power cut because we denied DTE access to our property

for purpose of installing a unsafe surveillance device

on our home. We absolutely refused to have it on our

home.

We're now on our third generator.

Generators do not last, they're not designed to last if

you're running 24 hours for a year. So as a result

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you'll pay a lot of money for a generator, you're going

to have to replace them. So anyway, we are now on our

third generator.

I don't see where the customers will

benefit from the proposed rule changes. The dilemma we

now face is caused by the utility customer having

little, if any, choice between suppliers, the supplier

having little incentive to accommodate customer.

Products, service, quality, and cost are now totally

controlled by the supplier.

A major concern of utility customers is

the threat of losing service for choosing not to have a

smart meter replace their analog meter.

The reasons that customers don't want

smart meters are well documented and well-known to

anyone who cares to research the subject.

A temporary fix would be to allow the

customers who have analog meters for any reason and at

no additional cost for doing so. I recommend adding

these words to the MPSC rules; quote, "Utility

customers shall have the choice of either a traditional

metal and glass electro-mechanical analog meter or a

plastic advanced AMI digital or opt-out meter at no

additional cost," unquote.

This, however is only a temporary fix.

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The real solution would be to have government invoke

antitrust laws to ensure that customers wield as much

control over the energy market as the suppliers. This

has historically proven to be the best road to peace

and prosperity for all parties.

In the field of energy, an open market

would not only balance the market between buyer and

seller, but it would also allow currently suppressed

technology to flourish and challenge the hundred year

old technology that has survived as long as it has due

to suppression of literally thousands of energy

innovations that we should and be -- should be

encouraging to compete.

It is my hope that the Commission will

take these recommendations into very serious

consideration.

Thank you.


Mr. Lonier.

David Sheldon.

Good morning.

MR. SHELDON: Good morning. David

Sheldon, and I'm here, first of all, to say that a

couple of us who are in this room, Mr. Meltzer and I,

were interveners in a general rate case that DTE had a

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year ago, and in connection with that case we brought

in Dr. David Carpenter who's been alluded to several

times today.

And Dr. Carpenter made the, made the

point as part of his testimony under oath which is

subject of course to cross-examination, he made the

point that not only the RF from the smart meters but

the dirty electricity that's caused by any type of

electronic meter, the so-called opt-out meters, the

digital meters that Consumer's are offering, the

opt-out meter that DTE is offering, all of these are

electronic contained switch-mode power supplies and do

generate what's called dirty electricity.

This phenomena is well-documented. It

involves putting frequencies on the home wiring which

in turn generate magnetic fields throughout the home.

Dr. Carpenter has supported that point. At the end of

the case his testimony was totally ignored.

Now that was about a year ago, along

about July of 2015. On August 31st of 2015 DTE came to

the house that I share with my fiance in Oak Park and

they cut our power at the pole. They did this they

said because we had a padlock on the meter housing. We

had the original analog meters that DTE itself had

installed years earlier, and we put padlocks on them to

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prevent them from installing smart meters. And they

declared that to be a, quote, "hazardous condition",

unquote, and on that basis they cut our power without

giving us a ten-day notice or apparently any appeal

procedure.

We were cut-off. We've been without

power now for over a year, and we had to invest in

getting a generator and getting a battery bank for

energy storage for the night hours. We had a rough

winter last winter because we had to, first we had only

a gasoline generator and the city wouldn't let us run

it after 7:00 at night so we had no heat through most

of last winter.

Finally we got a natural gas-powered

generator and batteries and we were able to function

more smoothly. But it was at enormous cost. And

nobody should have to go through that. And many of the

people in this room because of the type of

neighborhoods they're in and whatnot or financial

limitations are not going to be able do what we did,

they're not going to be able to put the generator in

and battery banks. The noise problems alone would

preclude it in many neighborhoods.

We think, I think it is the

responsibility of this Commission to protect all

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utility customers, and not simply the majority of them

who seem not to be objecting to the smart meters. We

believe there are thousands of customers now who have

issues with or are completely, considered completely

unacceptable the alternatives that Consumer's and DTE

are putting forth them. They attempt to defend

themselves by padlocking the meter housing. It's the

only way to prevent smart meter installation. The

utility companies will not abide by any requests, the

signs or anything else. The only thing that stops them

is a padlock on the meter housing.

They are now abusing the definition of

the word hazardous and using that as an excuse to

summarily disconnect power without notice or warning

and apparently without any appeal procedure. We think

that's wrong. It's a denial of due process.

So in part I'm here today to argue that

there's -- a definition should be added to these rules,

and that definition would be of the term hazardous

condition. Now truly there are hazardous conditions

that would justify a meter disconnect. If somebody's

done something that's going to electrocute somebody

that touches the meter box, or it's going to cause

overheating which could cause a fire or short circuit

the whole neighborhood, these are hazardous conditions,

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no question, and they should be disconnected

immediately. There can be recourse and hearings after

the fact but the disconnect should be immediate.

So there's a reason for such a rule but

it needs to be hemmed in with a proper definition of

the word hazardous. Hazardous does not mean whatever

DTE or Consumer's chooses to call it. They are abusing

the definition. What they're saying is nonsense.

There's nothing hazardous about a padlock on a meter

housing. The utilities have in fact tolerated that for

decades. Now all of a sudden it's a hazardous

condition.

The other thing I wanted to say is that

what we're hearing from so many today is not just

peoples' notions or prejudices based on misinformation

on the Internet; far from that. The causes of the

illness that people are complaining about are

well-documented. The majority of published peer review

research by scientists and medical people who are not

in the employ of the utilities and not an employee of

the US Department of Energy, which is the cheerleader

for this whole smart meter, the independent

researchers, the vast majority of them are saying that

this is a problem, that there is at the minimum a

certain minority of the population, perhaps as many as

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5 percent, who will be immediately injured by the

installation of these types of devices. And there is

also of course the canary in the coalmine business, you

know. If it's 2 percent, even if it's only 1 percent

of the population that gets immediate symptoms. If 1

or 2 percent of us are getting the symptoms right away,

what does that mean about the rest of us 15 years from

now, 20 years from now? We have to endure this stuff.

Maybe the symptoms won't happen until years later and

then it will be too late, just as with cigarette

smoking.

So the other thing is the surveillance

aspect of this federal agency, NIST, National Institute

for Science and Technology, or Standards and

Technology, which is part of the federal government has

said these are surveillance devices and that peoples'

rights to refuse them should be honored. They've said

all that.

Now when some of our, the people, some

of my fellow activists have written letters to Attorney

General Bill Schuette about this because Michigan has a

statute, a surveillance statute, and the statute says

that any person who installs a device that is designed

to listen to or monitor activities within the home

without the knowledge and consent of the homeowner has

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committed a felony. And the first offense for that is

one year in prison, and a second offense can be up to

five years in prison for this felony.

Now some of us have written to Bill

Schuette and said why aren't you enforcing this law,

it's on the books? Clearly this is a surveillance

device, clearly DTE is installing it without consent,

and the answer we get back from our Attorney General

is, first of all, he says it's not a surveillance

devise. Secondly, he says, well, even if it is a

surveillance device you consent to it when you sign up

for electric service.

I'm sorry I did not consent. We do not

consent to this. And I think the Attorney General's

answer is nonsense, and that it's time we started

enforcing the law in Michigan and it's time that this

Commission started protecting all of the utility

customers.

Thank you.


Mr. Sheldon.

Jay Bovers [sic].

MR. BOWERS: Sorry, your Honor. I have

a little visual aide here for you, and for everybody

else here.

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Folks, this is a burned out smart meter.

Muskegon Heights. And I have a couple more visual aids

I'll show you in just a moment.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Thank you. Okay.

Good morning.

MR. BOWERS: Good morning. Thank you

for letting me talk, your Honor. I appreciate this

very much.

My name is Jay Bowers by the way.


MR. BOWERS: And I live in Spring Lake.

I became aware of a troubling event when I was asked to

download a photograph for an investigative reporter of

a woman named Theresa Doza. As the regulatory agency

here, what I'm about to tell you probably doesn't exist

to them and as the public utility will probably tell

you, it simply did not happen.

Well, Theresa Doza's story is an example

I think of six major problems that these new rules

don't address or may have created actually.

Here's a picture of Theresa. I don't

know if you can see it but take a good look at it if

you will. She's really a dear person. And in November

of 2013 her house, the one she's lived in since she was

born 88 years ago, the only one she's ever known burned

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down because of a smart meter, the one you're looking

at right here.

Now that's not my opinion, that's the

opinion of the Muskegon Heights Fire Department.

There's the burnt meter. And attached, if anyone is

interested, is the report of that burned out smart

meter. If anybody would like to look at it I'll be

happy to show it to you and I'll give one to the court

reporter as well.


MR. BOWERS: Apparently the Muskegon

Heights Fire Department did not get the memo, or rather

the flat verbal statement from Consumer's securities

investigators to Theresa about her fire that smart

meters don't cause fires.

I understand this isn't the first time

Theresa's story has been told. However, on each

occasion, including the investigator I just mentioned,

when she's asked for Consumer's written report on her

fire she's been rebuffed or promised and then ignored.

And yes, she was heard by the right

people. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Patrick Hudson of

the MPSC, Smart Grid Section, heard her plea on

December 2nd, 2014, at the House Oversight Hearing.

Dennis McKee, Consumer's Smart Meter spokesman promised

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her the report.

When ignored, Theresa was beside

herself. She contacted an attorney who said you

haven't got enough money to fight Consumer's.

The six major problems I see with this

are these: First of all, does Consumer's make reports

on these safety matters? Does one exist for Theresa's

fire?

Are poor people disadvantaged or

discriminated here? That's No. 2.

No. 3: Should Rule 460.103, which talks

about non-discrimination or penalizing customers for

exercising any right granted by these rules, be dropped

or deleted from these new rules. And that's what

they're proposing, to drop that rule.

No. 4: Does Theresa deserve to know her

rights and a contact point as a utility customer?

Should there be a leaflet given to her for disputes,

and at all customers contacts?

No. 5: Does anyone know how many smart

meter related disconnects there are? How many melted

meter bases there are? How many other unknown wiring

errors or actual smart meter fires? Should there be a

separate line item in the quarterly report for these

items?

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And lastly, and there's probably a lot

more, but No. 6: Should there be a receipt and later a

written report when a field contact with a customer

occurs?

Shouldn't all of these be considered for

inclusion in the proposed amended rules in order to

adopt fair terms and conditions for Michigan's utility

customers? That last sentence I think you'll recognize

is part of their mission statement.

And dear Theresa, she's living in public

housing now. She's poor. She didn't have insurance on

her home but hopes Consumer's will pay for the damage

and still believes one day she'll be able to move back

to that house where she was born. Question is: Will

she?



Mr. Bowers.

MR. BOWERS: Oh, excuse me, I have one

last thing. I just picked up this paper today and it

was referenced once before by someone else but there is

something on the back page that I don't think was

referenced. This where the Fire Chief's home was lost,

because of a smart meter fire.

And at the end, Mr. McKee, who I

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referenced earlier from the MPSC -- no, he's with

Consumer's I believe, he's the PR person for them --

no, I take it back, MPSC; in any case, Mr. McKee says:

The component failure was a loose connection, and it

really didn't have anything to do with the smart meter

itself. I believe there's some evidence to the

contrary and I will present that with my written

remarks after this statement.

So thank you for indulging me a little

longer.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Yes, thank you very

much.

The next individual listed is Lori,

and I've having difficulty reading her last name. It

starts with an E.

MS. EBAUGH: Ebaugh.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Ebaugh; could you

spell that please when you approach the microphone.

MS. EBAUGH: Sure.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Good afternoon.

MS. EBAUGH: Thank you. Good afternoon.

It's Lori Ebaugh, that's spelled E, b like boy,

-a-u-g-h, and I'm from Milford.


MS. EBAUGH: Before I address the rules

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that I want to address I want to say that I too am

electro-magnetically sensitive and found out --

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Speak a little bit

louder, please.

MS. EBAUGH: Okay. Before I address the

rules that I wanted to address in the document that

we're here for, I also wanted to mention that I too am

electro-magnetically sensitive, and found out about it

in the way that many of the people here did. After

three months of trying to find out what was wrong with

me, I had heart palpitations and insomnia, my doctors

could find nothing wrong with me. I went through three

different doctors, multiple tests, couldn't find out

anything about smart meters. Then I went back and

traced when my malady had started, and sure enough it

started as soon as my smart meter had been installed.

So because I didn't know better I got

the opt-out meter. I already had the smart meter on my

house unfortunately, so the only option that I had was

this opt-out meter which has the dirty electricity.

Today I have to turn my power off in my bedroom at

night and I also sleep under a Faraday cage netting.

It blocks the radiation because I live in a

neighborhood and I'm surrounded by other peoples' smart

meter transmissions as well, so I have to do that.

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But back to what I'm here to speak

about. I'm here to speak particularly about two rules.

The first one is Rule 137, part I that says that:

Services can be, denial of services can be allowed if a

customer refuses to arrange access at reasonable times

for the purpose of inspection meter reading,

maintenance, or replacement of equipment that is

installed upon the premises or for the removal of the

meter. Of course we're objecting to that particular

rule.

And then Rule 130, parts (2) and (3) say

that the utility can restrict the time periods where

shutoff is, is postponed for a period of two months in

Rule 2, part (2) or -- and that's for one person, or

for no more than 126 days per household for anyone on a

12-month period.

And I wanted to bring up the fact that

this is becoming recognized as a medical disability,

electro-magnetic frequency disorder or EFDS

electro-magnetic sensitivity. So the American With

Disabilities Act, their accessibility guidelines for

Building Facilities, Recreation Facilities, which was

published in September of 2002 states, quote, "The

Board recognizes that multiple chemical sensitivities

and electro-magnetic sensitivities may be considered

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disabilities under the ADA, if they so severely impair

the neurological, respiratory, or other functions of an

individual that it substantially limits one or more of

the individual's major life activities." Those

activities includes sleep.

On September 1st, 2015, a federal

district court in Florida ruled on an ADA claim based

on the allegations that an individual was experiencing

insomnia, ear ringing, difficulty concentrating as a

result of the attachment of a digital meter to his

house. That was in 2015, last year. The court said

that because these symptoms substantially limited the

major life activities and derived from, quote, "some

sort of physical or mental impairment," unquote, it

could reasonably infer that the plaintiff had a

disability.

So what we're talking about a

disability. We're talking about electro-magnetic

sensitivity, a disability that is recognized by the ADA

at least in their guidelines for building facilities.

It should be recognized by the MPSC as well, and so I

ask that a provision, a rule would be inserted to these

rules that would postpone shutoff indefinitely for any

customer that has that documented medical condition and

medical diagnosis of electro-magnetic sensitivity and

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that for those like me who didn't know to keep their

analog meter than an optional rule would be put in

place that we would be allowed to receive a new analog

meter and get rid of the electronic meter that we are

currently being forced to opt-out to.

Thank you.


Ms. Ebaugh.

We are now into the lunch hour. We have

approximately 15 more individuals who wish to be heard

today; however, I don't want to deprive any audience

members from getting nourishment, because I anticipate

that it will be probably be another hour, hour

and-a-half. So would you all prefer that we take a

break now for lunch and reconvene at 1:00? Otherwise I

am willing to continue.

THE AUDIENCE: Continue.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: All right, we'll

recontinue, and if we need to take a short break I'm

happy to do.

THE AUDIENCE: Thank you.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: You're welcome.

John Juno.

Lola Killey.

Good afternoon.

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MS. KILLEY: Good afternoon. Thank you,

your Honor, for this opportunity.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Yes.

MS. KILLEY: Thank you. My name is Lola

Killey and I'm from Ann Arbor and I have some things

written down, and then some other things as well.

So several sections of this case concern

me because they seem too broad in their description of

a situation that could lead to harming the consumer or

having the consumer's power shutoff.

Regarding harming the consumer, I'm

implying than the utility would be given permission to

install an AMI meter or smart meter close to the

consumer's home or near the home.

Smart meters use wireless technology

that make people very sick, so sick to the point where

they're unable to live in their homes, as we have of

course heard.

They also pose serious privacy concerns

and national security issues. There's a House Bill,

4916, that is currently in the Energy Committee that

would allow people to choose to keep or to use an

analog meter. Analog meters have never made anyone

sick, nor compromised anyone individual's privacy or

our national security. However, this bill has not been

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passed so consumers do not have a choice to use an

analog meter. Therefore, some of the rules in Case

U-18120 would give the utilities permission to install

a smart meter because there isn't a provision in our

laws to keep or reinstall an analog meter that was

replaced by a smart meter.

Here are some of the specific points.

In Part 4, there's, in Rule 46013 --

113, where we have, it says: If the meter reader's

safety is at risk, the utility shall notify the

customer of all the following information, and in

Part (3) it says, a utility may install remote meter,

an actual meter reading device, or other similar device

that provides the utility with an actual meter reading.

I believe this leaves open a possibility that the

utility could come in and put in smart meter based on

at risk, which is not defined.

Another part of that same section says

if meter reading equipment failure occurs, the utility

shall make all reasonable efforts to replace or repair

equipment so that not more than two estimate bills are

used. Again, this leaves the door open for the utility

to bring in and install a smart meter.

In Part (8) there's, it talks about

shutoff without notice, and the part was 137: Without

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notice, if a condition on the consumer's premises is

determined by the utility or governmental agency to be

hazardous; again, that, this is very disturbing because

there is no definition what hazardous means. So

insisting on having, as we have heard exactly what

happened, insisting on having an analog meter on one's

home could be considered hazardous.

Continuing there, without notice, if a

consumer uses equipment in a manner that adversely

affects the utility's equipment or the utility's

service to others, shutoff; again, very broad language

that could force a consumer to have a smart meter on

her home rather than an analog meter.

Continuing, E, in the part Rule 37.1.g:

The customer has engaged in unauthorized use of utility

service; again, that permits for shutoff. This is very

broad language and could be used if to say that using

an analog meter is unauthorized and so shutoff can be

permitted.

And the Part (i) where it says the

customer has refused to, and it goes on to say to

arrange for access at reasonable times, again

reasonable times are not defined, for the purpose of

inspection, meter reading, maintenance, or replacement

of equipment that is installed upon the premises or for

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the removal of meter; shutoff. Again, this broad

sweeping language and text keeps the customer

continuously vulnerable and susceptible to whimsical

or, you know, decisions about what kind of meter might

be on their home.

Then we have, continuing here, if the

customer has violated any rulings of the utility, and

it goes on to say or the integrity of the utility

system; shutoff. Okay. So we don't even have a

definition of what is the utility, the utility system.

Would integrity mean data integrity? So then we say

that if data collected on a postcard by an analog meter

wouldn't have integrity? Again, this very broad text

and this broad language allows in very many parts of

this ruling to have utility's permission to go in and

put in smart meters.

So each of these sections above there

needs to be text that is much more specific in defining

the circumstances, and additionally there needs to be

text that protects the consumer who wants to use an

analog meter.

So I urge the Commission to request more

specific language regarding these sections, and include

exemptions and exceptions for consumers who are using

and want to use an analog meter.

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So that was my written commentary. And

I do have a little bit of a personal story as well. I

have an opt-out meter so I arranged with DTE to turn

off my radio on my smart meter. And when that happened

I didn't feel any different effect. Well, that's

because my neighbor's smart meter is 10 feet away from

mine. And so I've had insomnia issues and heart

palpitations, but I never considered -- I've never

called myself electro-magnetic sensitive. I'm a normal

person. I'm extremely healthy. I swim butterfly, 100

meter butterfly. I'm, you know, very healthy. And for

me to have heart palpitations is insane.

So just recently, I learned that I

should turn off -- because of the dirty electricity in

my house, I thought, okay, I'm going turn off the

circuit breaker to my bedroom. Well, I did that and my

insomnia went away and my heart palpitations have gone

away.

So this, the opt-out meter solution

isn't a health solution for people and I think you've

heard that many times and I just wanted to add to the

volume of experience that has been brought to you

today.

But I also wanted to say a couple of

other things again in terms of this, this, Jeremy

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Johnson has a TED Talk. And he was a silicone valley

engineer and he got sick from his smart meter. I won't

go into the whole thing but he said this the new air

pollution, this is air pollution, and what we need do

is to treat it as such.

And the state of California has brought

this to the attention not just of the power utilities

but also of the telecommunications. And they have an

opt-out for their WiFi Comcast boxes. Every Comcast

box now, cable box, comes with four WiFi radios, two

for public, and two for private.

And I live in a neighborhood, I live

behind an apartment complex, and my husband determined

that there are 48 WiFi networks that we could pick up

in our living room. And so we are opting out in our

Comcast box to get our WiFi out of there.

But I just wanted to say that this, this

is, it's not just the utility companies. I'm sorry,

I'm getting a little off-track here, but it's about air

pollution. Everybody is getting affected. And so it

would be wrong to consider that people who are the

canaries in the cage are strange outliers. We're all

breathing the same air. We're all getting radiated.

And so I just wanted you to know that in

the United Nations the smart meters are considered to

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be Class 1I carcinogenic and many foreign countries are

not allowing smart meters to be used in their countries

because they're carcinogenic.

And I want you to know that again in

this other issue that hasn't been addressed too much in

terms of privacy and security, just this morning

driving into Lansing on the radio, WJR, it was reported

that Yahoo got hacked. So Yahoo, one of the most

advanced technological cloud companies in the world got

hacked and peoples' passwords and birth dates were

taken.

So the idea that, that we cannot have

the safe analog to protect ourself, our privacy

including our national security to some extent because

if the hackers get into the data banks that the utility

companies are keeping, guess what they know? They know

everybody's location, if they're home or not, if

they're using power, where all the power stations,

where are the data collection sites, they're just going

to know everything.

So I just want to know that today there

was a hyper focus on the health issues and that's,

that's really important because people are dying,

people are getting sick. I have a brother-in-law --

the reason I'm involved in this, I'm not sick, but my

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brother-in-law has lived in Oregon. He's had EMS

sensitivity and sickness for eight years. He has to

leave the state of Oregon now and move to Florida

because of the way the power companies are doing their

data collection and how often, how many thousands of

times in an hour they're collecting data. He's moving

to Florida now. He's extremely ill. And he's living

like a refugee. He's been sleeping in his truck for

every night for two years. He sleeps in his truck to

try and find a safe place.

But anyway, I just want you to please

understand that even if we just had the analog choice

bill, if we could choose to have an analog meter, these

issues evaporate. They evaporate. These issues only

came about because of smart meters.

And the loopholes or the doors that are

open in the current rule, in the current case, leave

way too much liberty for the power utilities to decide

what they want to do, and it's just, it's just wrong.

And California is ahead of us. They're ahead of us.

They have rule regulations for smart meters and they're

getting rule regulations for Comcast boxes. So they're

ahead of us, so we should be looking to them and

understanding that this is real.

Thank you very much for your time.

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Ms. Killey.

John Tatar.

MR. TATAR: You might want to look at

that later.


Good afternoon.

MR. TATAR: Good afternoon. I was going

say morning, I was just about to ask that question

because I don't have a watch.

My name is John Tatar and I live in

Farmington Hills. First of all, I want everyone to

remember that America's form of government is a

republic, not a democracy. And as republic, we are

guaranteed under Article 4, Section 4 of the United

States Constitution. And in a republic, the people are

in charge. And we delegate to governments certain

authorities to handle issues for us. These governments

are instituted among men deriving their just power from

the consent of the government to protect our life, our

liberty, and our property, as addressed in the

Declaration of Independence.

With that said, all of you that are

public servants are in law public functionaries,

according to Norton versus Shelby County, the document

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I just handed to the two of you, with a sole purpose of

protecting the people against the intrusion of

chartered corporations such as DTE who were granted the

sole function to provide electrical service to the

people in Michigan.

All public functionaries swear an oath

to office, Article XI, Section 1 of the -- as stated in

the Michigan Constitution, to uphold the Constitution

of the United States, the Constitution of the State of

Michigan, and Michigan Compiled Laws.

All public functionaries must be de jure

officers occupying a de jure office, according to

Norton. And Norton sets the standards for all public

functionaries. If you look at Michigan Constitution

Article IV, Section 51, it states: The public health

and general welfare of the people of the state are

hereby declared to be a matter of prime public concern.

The legislature shall pass suitable laws for the

protection and promotion of public health.

Michigan Law 256 in 2013 and the

Michigan Penal Code 328 of 1931 defines an unlawful of

purpose of frightening -- well, including but not

limited to frightening, terrorizing, intimidating,

threatening, harassing, injuring or killing any person,

damage or destroying any real property or personal

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property without permission of the property owner.

Harmful electronic or magnetic devices means a device

designed to emanate or radiate or that is as a result

it is designed to emanate or radiate an electronic or

electro-magnetic pulse currently -- current beam signal

or microwave that is intended to cause harm to others.

We know the harmful effects of RF

radiation on the human body. RF radiation is

accumulative. For some citizens there is an immediate

physical affect. If it is a fact all of us that live

in this RF environment are being affected, we will all

be affected at sometime. Therefore, it is necessary

for everyone to who involved to know the ramifications

of RF radiations and take precautionary measures

necessary. It is a usurpation of DTE's charter to

force upon the citizens a metering program for the

benefit of DTE without knowing the long-term affects of

this program on our health, safety, and privacy.

We also know the fact that DTE, as well

as other utility companies, have been granted major

monies from the federal government to deploy these

smart meter without regards to the concerns of the

citizens.

We also know the fact that DTE will be

gathering information: For what purpose?

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We also know that the opt-out program

that DTE is forcing upon the people is a violation of

the MPSC ruling of U-17087. That's the June 28, 2013,

reading -- or ruling.

On Page 6 of that ruling, it allows

Consumer customers to charge proposed fees in order to

allow customers to retain their existing

electromechanical meters to maintain a metering

inventory, distinct testing policies, and billing

platforms for actual monthly meter readings. That's

out of your document.

DTE Energy states that this ruling only

applies to Consumer Energy. Though DTE claims that

they do not maintain a meter inventory, they, however,

believe they have the right to charge the tariff-based

fees as presented in the U-17087. This is doublespeak

and a usurpation of delegated authorities by DTE, and a

total disregard of the MPSC ruling.

We also know the order of the

Court of Appeals of the State of Michigan, Judge Peter

O'Connell states, I also -- I am also greatly concerned

that the opt-out costs are actually a penalty imposed

to force the opt-outer's to comply with the AMI

program. On remand, the PCS is charged with the task

of determining if these new costs are a penalty, a tax,

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or a legitimate fee.

And second, he states the appellants

have not had an opportunity to present evidence to the

PSC. If we were to grant the PSC motion for

reconsideration, these appellants would be denied due

process. An extensive hearing where all are invited to

wear their concerns about the smart meter program may

pursue the public, that the fox is not watching the

henhouse and more important, that sufficient safeguards

are in place to implement the smart meter program.

Judge O'Connell, further states that

opinion or order I fully expect the PSC on remand to

grant an individual appellant's a full and fair due

process hearing so that they would have their day in

court and would be able to air their concerns about the

AMI program.

In our form of government, the least a

government body should do is listen to the citizens and

provide a forum to allow them to air their grievances.

He says I concur a hearing was held below, in this

document, but supplementing this record with additional

facts and conclusions of law that accurately support

the PCS's ultimate decision and give the individual

appellants their day in court is a fundamental

requirement of our form of government.

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And my question to you is: Why has this

hearing not been held at this time since this opinion

was issued July 22, 2015 over a year ago.

Downes versus Bidwell is a Supreme Court

Decision 182 US 244, the language of Justice Cooley

states: The Constitution itself never yields to the

treaty or enactment; it never changes with time nor

does it in theory bend to the forces of circumstances.

It may be amended according to its own permission by

constitutional amendment but while it stands it is the

law for rulers and people, equal in war and in peace,

and covers with the shields of its protection all

classes of men at all times under all circumstances.

Its principals cannot therefore be set aside in order

to meet the supposed necessity of great crisis.

And Justice Matthews in that same case,

Downes versus Bidwell states when I consider the nature

and theory of our institutions of government the

principle upon which they're supposed to rest and

review the history of their development we're

constrained to conclude that they do not mean to leave

room for the play and acting of purely personal and

arbitrary power. Sovereignty itself it, of course, not

subject to law, for it is the author and the source but

in our system, while sovereign powers are delegated to

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agencies of government, sovereignty itself remains with

the people, by whom and for whom all government exists

and act. And the law is the definition and limitation

of power.

In Norton versus Shelby County, which I

handed you, has a lot more in it to say but the short

of it is an unconstitutional act is not a law it

confers no rights, it imposes no duty, it affords no

protection, it creates no office, it is, in legal

contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never

been passed.

If the PSC and all concerned government

public functionaries do not do their duty as prescribed

by the Constitution and laws of this land, these public

functionaries will be usurpers and will open themselves

up to personal liability.

There is no way that a public

functionaries operating in these de jure offices are

not aware of the citizens concerns. Plausible

deniability therefore cannot be used as a shield of

immunity.

Remember one thing: "When a man who is

honestly mistaken learns the truth, he will either no

longer be mistaken or he will cease to be honest."

And a little postscript, there's a

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lawsuit presently right now with Aric Nesbitt,

Representative Liberati, Joe McCormick, Robert

Sitkauscus and Valerie Brainer as defendants in federal

court and more to follow.

Thank you.


Mr. Tatar.

Dominic Cusumano.

Good afternoon.

MR. CUSUMANO: Good afternoon. I'll

start off to say that the MPSC has empowered the

utility to abuse the public through their complacency

and tariffs and enforcement of their own rules.

Starting off with rule -- in the staff hearing of the

U-17000, the staff of the MPSC made the decision that

the smart meters were safe and reliable and gave

basically permission to the two utilities, Consumer's

and DTE to go ahead and deploy these meters statewide.

The staff hearing was conducted by MPSC

Staff and was not a contested hearing according -- but

according to the rules, a contested hearing should have

been held on that matter because the public or anyone

else did not have any say in that hearing.

In turn the hearing -- the decision was

granted that the meters were safe and they were

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deployed by everyone in the state.

With that in mind, no one on the staff

of the MPSC has any medical background. They have no

background on the privacy issue and no background on

anything to do with the medical with these meters and

the effects of those meters, but they deemed them safe

on their own recognizance.

Now moving forward, there was an opt-out

hearing. The Court of Appeals had remanded a decision

back to them, the MPSC, to have an opt-out hearing and

to be able to give the public the ability to opt-out.

With that in mind, a lot of people that

are in the room here were intervenors in that opt-out

case. All information and all testimony that was

brought up in the opt-out case that had to do with

health, safety, and privacy was all struck by the

ALJ Mack, and was not allowed to be brought into the

hearing for the simple reason that they said they were

there just to decide on what it was going to cost the

public to opt-out.

Moving ahead, they during the hearing of

the opt-out, they literally sat there in the room with

all of us and told us that whether you opted-out or

not, DTE's representatives testified we were all

getting the same meter whether you opted-out or not.

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All they were going to do was they were going to come

out and install a transmitting meter on everybody's

house and they were going to charge you to send

somebody out to turn the transmitter off on that house.

And the transmitter would be the only part of that

meter that would be disabled. All other functions of

that meter would continue on, and the only real

difference between the opt-out meter and the real meter

is that the opt-out meter would, someone would come

out, plug into it, and read all your information off

that meter at one time at the end of the month rather

than have it streamed to DTE all month, besides the

RF's that would be produced by the meter it was

transmitting.

The one thing that has to be kept in

mind is that these meters, they transmit like a daisy

chain from meter to meter to meter until they find in

the neighborhood the hub meter. That hub meter is the

one that transmits all the information from that

neighborhood to the collector.

With that in mind, whether you have a

transmitting meter or not, and your two neighbors have

transmitting meters, they're transmitting straight

through your house 24/7. You're getting all the

radiation coming through your house as if, almost as if

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you had your own meter on the house.

Now going to the staff report that was,

staff report 18099, which was from August 29th of 2016,

the staff report that was, the conclusion of that staff

report was that Commissioner Sari states a utility's

goal with delivering world class service to its

residential customers carries with it responsibility to

have in place programs that provide assistance to

special needs residents in our state.

It went on to say: Today the Commission

is making it very clear that we are giving the guidance

and direction to the utilities to work with families

facing medical challenges. It went on to say: These

Michigan residents deserve the opportunity to live a

quality life with the assurance that life-saving energy

service will be provided.

This basically is the conclusion of the

U-18098, which was a staff, again another one of these

staff hearings.

The MPSC, as I started off, has abused

the public by giving the utilities the power, and they

continuously come back to us, the public, and say that

they do not have any jurisdiction over the type of

meters that are used for collection of data at the

houses as far as power is concerned and recording of

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power.

But according to R 460.101(a) which is

Scope of Rules, it states under No. 3, upon written

request of a person, utility, or its own motion, the

Commission may temporarily waive any requirements of

these rules when it determines the waiver will further

the effectiveness and efficient administration of these

rules if it's in the public interest.

The MPSC has literally washed their

hands up to this point in time and said that they do

not have any jurisdiction when they do have the power

to give waivers, written waivers to anyone with medical

conditions to be able to get a smart meter off their

house or not have a smart meter.

Under R 460.151, which is reporting

requirements that the utilities are to make to the

MPSC, again, giving the out to the MPSC and not in

saying that they're naive to these things because

apparently the utilities are not reporting to them the

disconnects and everything else that's going on out

there, there is on the reporting requirements that they

have, if you look at these reports, all these reports

state is the disconnects, the shutoff notices, and the

complaints are problems that they're having with

payments.

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If a customer does not make a payment to

a bill they have the right to come out and disconnect.

And what they do is submit to the MPSC a report of all

these type of issues as far as payments are concerned.

But in essence, these reports should

also show a record and a breakdown of the fires, the

privacies, and any harassment or intimidation that the

utility companies have been showing to the public.

A lot of people on the U-17000 case

going back way to when the staff approved the meters

for everybody saying they were safe, there was 400

people that had sent in complaints and comments on that

case. They were all treated by the MPSC as comments.

None of them were treated as complaints, so none of

them had any hearings opened up on them and nobody knew

what was going on because they were all considered

comments, when a lot of them were complaints and the

public did not know how to file a complaint.

But under your scope of rules you have

the ability to circumvent these issues. It is

important then when they do do their reports that they

include the fires, the privacy aspects, and most

importantly the medical.

A lot of people complained to the

utility companies about the medical issues, and you

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never see them at the MPSC, they're swept under the

rug. There's no record of the public's complaints.

And as far as the medical is concerned and the

different type of objects and actually getting specific

on these things, they are not reporting them back to

the MPSC because it is not a requirement.

And going back to the beginning of the

changes on this report, you have -- give me one second

here. That was on Rule 133 which used to be -- now

it's Rule 151, it used to be Rule 133, it was the

reports that they have to give out.

Let me see -- oh, as far as the, in the

opt-out hearings, the definition of opt-out in the

Webster's dictionary was defined as: To choose to do

without. That definition was changed in the opt-out

hearing by the utility companies to mean: To modify,

not to choose to opt-out.

Now we run into this other situation of

hazard and the definition of hazard. The utilities

have changed the definition of hazard also, going the

other way, so that if someone does not have the ability

to enter your yard and look at your equipment and maybe

possibly change it out, it's considered a hazard.

In 2012, my wife was getting sick for

some reason, we didn't know what it was. We found out

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at a party at Thanksgiving in 2012 that they had put a

smart meter on our house. Went back, looked, there was

a smart meter on the house, unbeknownst to us.

We asked them to remove it. They said

no. We asked them two, three times to remove it, there

was no answers back. We went out and we bought

ourselves an analog meter, we gave them a 30-day notice

to remove it from our house, our house that we own. We

went out and switched out the meter and sent them back,

bubble-wrapped, perfect condition, their meter with

pictures of the meter so they couldn't accuse us of

stealing any electricity. We switched out the meter,

and my wife started feeling much better, she didn't

have that issue anymore.

Within three months they sued us in

Circuit Court of Oakland County for tampering with the

meter, which faces a $25,000 fine and a felony

conviction. We have been fighting them in Circuit

Court for over four years in Oakland County. And to

this -- and right now the case is on stay and it's

still hanging out there everyday of our lives.

And we believe that if it's your house,

you own the house, you own the property, you own the

box. All they're supposed to do is be able to record

kilowatt usage per hour for billing purposes. These

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are not meters according to the definition of the

tariff that they operate under. A meter is a unit that

is there to record kilowatt usage per hour for billing

purposes.

These are devices. These are not

meters. These go way beyond the scope of being a

meter. And in our court case, in our court case in

front of Judge Kumar in Oakland County Circuit Court,

the Judge asked the attorney from DTE that if this unit

was a meter and didn't do all these other things, then

why was it necessary for us to switch it out. And he

said it is necessary for the system to work properly,

the whole system. She said: So you're telling me that

because you say it's a meter, you're allowed by the

MPSC to have this on their house? And you could come

to my house, she said, and you could put a camera on my

house, as long as it's connected that meter, a

surveillance camera could be connected to my house in

my back yard? And his comment was: Yes.

So anything they want to attach to this

meter, or that this meter can do is allowable through

your blessings through the MPSC.

Thank you.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Thank you, Mr.

Cusumano.

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Sarah Mullkoff.

MS. MULLKOFF: Yes.


Good afternoon.

MS. MULLKOFF: Good afternoon. My name

is Sarah Mullkoff. I'm the Energy Program Director at

the Michigan Enviromental Counsel here in Lansing. We

represent about 70 different environmental groups

throughout the state. We also play a role in ratepayer

protection as an intervenor in utility consumer

participation board cases.

And I'm here today to speak with all due

respect to the significant number of comments this

morning. I mean that sincerely. I'm here to speak on

a difference angles of the topic at hand.

Specifically in our role to ratepayer

protection, we look at energy policy and electricity

planning in a holistic way. And one of our primary

concerns about Michigan's historical over-capacity

position is that it has in part at least contributed to

Michigan having the highest electricity rates the

Midwest. And as we move forward we need to better

compliment our focus on generating capacity with

meeting demands in the most cost effective manner,

including all possible non-generation alternatives.

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What I mean by that is that the most

effective way to lower demand use of a resident's

impact on the grid overall is to implement more energy

efficiency programs and cost savings mechanism,

including access to utility data.

Some of this includes advanced meters.

When the Commission approved installment of advanced

meters in both DTE and Consumer's Energy service

territory, it was based on projections that the meters

would result in over $500 million of savings, meeting

future capacity requirements through demand response

programs.

Ratepayers are currently paying for

those meter investments at a cost of over 1.1 billion.

However, the savings will not materialize

automatically. It's going to require Commission or

legislative action. It will require that the utilities

follow through and create rate tariffs that change

behavior and encourage those savings to happen.

For instance, in pilot studies, the

utilities demonstrated that 40 percent of residential

peak demand could be avoided through time of use

design. So now is an appropriate time for utilities to

achieve those maximum savings they said were possible,

otherwise ratepayers are paying for the meters but not

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receiving the economic benefits through energy

efficiency.

And so in the case today is specifically

referring to Section 460.153, and we think the

technology has great potential to reduce customer

costs, especially in regards to the use of electricity.

We're at an age, an information age where access to

data, and through use of that information could modify

behavior in an either active or passive manner that

holds great potential.

Unfortunately, the significant change in

the type and nature of consumption data is not

reflected in the proposed rule change. With

traditional meters, a snapshot of use data was

sufficient for most services in determining where

potential energy savings could be realized.

Today, with access to time of use rates,

advanced thermostats, smart appliances, and energy

computer software, a much more robust access to data is

needed. In addition, a number of energy efficiency

service providers is now offering customers detailed

programs to help them manage energy use and reduced

costs.

It is in the best interest of citizen

ratepayers, residential ratepayers, to participate in

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these programs. Most are designed not only to reduce

overall energy use, but use during peak demand periods

when the cost of energy is the highest. A reduction in

these overall peaks will lower capacity requirements

for utilities and therefore reduce costs across the

board for all, all energy users, including the

residential ratepayers that we represent.

So we propose the following change be

made to 460.153; one, require regulated utilities to

participate in programs such as www.greenbuttondata.org

which helps safe -- which helps provide a safe and

secure interface between utilities, customers, and

energy efficiency service providers. This program has

already addressed security issues and data formats in a

manner which would significantly reduce the burden on

MPSC and Michigan utilities to develop programs and

formats themselves.

In addition, it's a program in which

third party providers are already familiar with, and

can therefore offer lower costs and services to

Michigan customers.

Two, require that the information be

acceptable on an ongoing basis to maximize the value of

information and reinforce positive behaviors which

reduce electricity use.

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Three, set forth clear, simple, and most

importantly affordable process to activate the home

area network capabilities of new meters to facilitate

the use of these appliances and control customer load

during peak usage periods.

We understand that there are privacy

concerns which must be addressed but utilities across

the country have met this challenge and provided robust

access for customers to use their data. This rule

gives Michigan an excellent opportunity to move forward

in realizing the benefits of these meters in saving

residents on their monthly utility bills.

It should be the policy of the MPSC to

take all possible steps to facilitate the robust use of

this technology so that all ratepayers can realize all

potential cost savings which could be realized through

their, through this customer data.

Thank you.


Ms. Mullkoff.

(Brief recess taken.)

JUDGE SONNEBORN: We are back on the

record in Case No. U-18120 continuing with the

presentation of public comments.

We have Mr. Chuck Caroselli.

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Carole Gorecki.

Kenneth Rhoads.

Good afternoon.

MR. RHOADS: Good afternoon. Yes, my

name is Kenneth Rhoads, Macomb Township.

And Dr. Barrie Trower, about six years

ago I sent a girl all the way to England to interview

him because he's talked about the microwave technology,

he's microwave scientist, he was saying how it's

changed our DNA so I want to leave you this DVD when I

get finished here.


MR. RHOADS: Because I feel like the

MPSC, they're not working for we the people, they're

working for the corporation, DTE and all the rest of

them.

I heard one woman say they want to

change our behavior. I don't mind you changing my

behavior, I don't mind you saving me money, but don't

kill me and make me sick while you're doing it.

My wife wakes up with the legs cramps,

and her legs are dancing all the time and the doctors

don't know what's wrong. Well, if she would do a

little research she'd find out.

This room has a lot of people here

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today, and I'm telling you when this, when it, finally

the people realize that they got sent a notice, we're

going to change your meter to save you money, which is

a lie, they're not, they ain't doing nothing to save us

money, they're doing it to control us. This room, you

wouldn't have enough room in here when the people

finally wake up and figure why they're getting sick.

And far as MPSC, I feel like they're in

the pockets of DTE. They call it politics, I call it

corruption. And I can't wait till the day they come to

MPSC and put a lot of them in handcuffs for being

corrupt. And that's all I've got to say.


Mr. Rhoads.

MR. RHOADS: Here's a DVD. It's an

interview of Barrie Trower.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: David Nash.

MR. NASH: Yes. Thank you for letting

me speak.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Yes, good afternoon.

MR. NASH: My name is Daniel.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Daniel. I'm sorry.

Daniel Nash.

MR. NASH: Yeah, I pretty much agree

with the sentiments of most of the people that have

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already talked, so I'm just going to make it short and

say I think we could go along way by fixing the problem

by having a real choice, bust up the monopoly of the

utilities, let other companies come in, sell

electricity, maybe have a few of them give a real

analog opt-out and let it go from there and see who

does better, because back in December 2nd of 2015, up

in Lansing, they had a house hearing. The MPSC was

there, Consumer Power, DTE, all said on record none of

them had a doctor on any, any staff anywhere, yet

they're coming out saying these are all safe and we

have to take them and we don't have a choice.

And as far as I'm concerned living in a

republic, which I think we still have, I do not

delegate any authority for them to do that. I don't

want a smart meter, opt-out meter, whatever they call

it on there, I want my opt-out, I should have that

choice.

If that's the case, if I don't, then

they should stop taking tax dollars to run their

business and charge me. To me that's double-dipping,

and that's not a choice at all. That's not a republic,

that's a tyrannical government if you ask me.

And I have documentation here from

doctors on health issues and whatnot that I'd like to

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submit.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Yes, you may.

MR. NASH: Okay. And that's all I had

to say.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: All right. Thank you

very much for your comments, Mr. Nash.

MR. NASH: Thank you.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Ralph Stenman and

Donna Stenman.

Good afternoon.

MS. STENMAN: Good afternoon.

MR. STENMAN: Good afternoon. I'm Ralph

Stenman. This is my wife Donna. And Donna has got a

few things to say.

MS. STENMAN: Yes. Where to start? We

go back to 2011 with Detroit Edison. In 2013 we

watched DTE replace the smart meter on two homes of our

neighbors on the same street and replace it with analog

meters. We took pictures. I talked to the one

homeowner. She also is a cancer survivor, as I am, and

we had a very nice chat I guess you could say.

Last year, 2015, August 14th, 2015, DTE

cut-off our power at the pole because I could not

consent to a smart meter. There were police there. It

was humiliating; I'm sure that was their intention. It

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was quite an experience that I don't want to go through

again ever, although I will not accept a smart meter.

I'm a cancer survivor. My husband has

heart issues. They are a known Class B carcinogenic.

It's known. We have documentation. This is fact.

We're not making this up.

Part of my cancer treatment was

radiation treatments and they said at the time you can

have no more. If you have reoccurrence, you cannot

have more radiation. And they want to put this device

on my home.

It says in Rule -- let me find it --

133, Reporting Requirements, there is a category to

track smart meter medical disputes: Neither the

Commission nor the legislature knows the true extent of

all those living without power because of the smart

meters we are forced to accept and pay for a non-analog

meter opt-out for health reasons. The rule states that

our power can be shutoff if we do not allow SS to

replace equipment. The rules also state if you are not

satisfied with the utility's actions, you have a right

to file a complaint and your power cannot be shutoff.

We are, we were in the Court of Appeals

when they shut us off. We are now in the Supreme Court

with the motion up for reconsideration. And it's still

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undetermined right now what their answer will be.

Even though we are shut off they still

come out and read our meter. Our meters are dead. We

are not stealing electricity. I hope they're not

planning on billing us for something that we aren't

receiving. That doesn't seem logical. But we don't

trust them. They're full of surprises.

There's just so much to cover.

And because of our shutoff and being on

a generator, my husband contacted pneumonia last

November. He was in the hospital from November to

January and in rehab from January to March. He now has

lost 40 percent of his one lung and he cannot do much

under exertion. That's what being shutoff has done to

us. We couldn't keep our home warm enough and it was

getting really cold out.

I guess I ask you, we ask you to give

this heartfelt consideration in changing these rules.

We need to be taken into consideration. We the public,

we the people, this should not be happening. People

being shutoff unfairly, seniors. We had no -- I had no

notice. I was in my bathrobe, my hair in rollers, two

police cars, people all over my neighbor's lawns,

Mr. McCormick walking around.

MR. STENMAN: We did not get ten days

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notice like we were supposed to either.

MS. STENMAN: Right. Ten-day notice and

a four-day red flag you are supposed to receive; we got

nothing. We were still the courts. No consideration.

What are they trying to prove? They can hurt people;

yes, they can. They shouldn't be doing this. These

meters are bad. They make people sick. I had two dogs

in my neighborhood die from tumors. They've had the

smart meters on their home for about five years now, it

goes back to 2011. If they put they smart meter on our

home we would have had to move.

It just doesn't seem right. And the

discrimination in the houses down the street that have

analog meters because the one lady was a cancer

survivor also. I felt very discriminated against.

We thank you for your time and allowing

us to present our stories to you.


Ms. Stenman. Thank you Mr. Stenman.

Myron Nims.

Good afternoon.

MR. NIMS: Good afternoon. My name is

Myron Nims. I live in Salem Township, Washtenaw

County. I'm here to protest that the utilities call

the shots, this is nothing but enslavement of the

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people. In my first encounter with Detroit Edison is

when I got a notice I was getting a smart meter and I

protested. They came and did it when I wasn't home and

left a massage on my answering machine.

We called Edison and told them we were

having headaches, my wife was having heart

palpitations, we would like to get it removed. They

said oh, no, it's just you're getting monoxide from

your dryer vent. I said you're crazy.

So about that time we were having a home

generator installed and while the electrician was there

I got an analog meter from a place in Florida and had

him change them out. We sent the analog -- the smart

meter back to Edison to Mr. McCorey by UPS, had him

sign he received it, put the analogs in, they came and

read the meter for three months, then they told me I

was stealing electricity and they were going to shut me

off.

So they came out and shut us off and

when they shut the power off I didn't know what I was

going do, I just fortunately had a little backup

5,000-watt generator. They tried to figure out what I

was going to do and my nextdoor neighbor was cutting

the hay and he came over and asked me what was going on

and I told him. He said, well, I know a guy in Milford

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who installs solar power.

So I had him come over and look at it.

We went with the solar power with a backup generator.

Edison kept calling me and telling me they're going to

read my meter. And I said you can't read a meter, I

don't have one.

So we finally decided, my wife and I,

that we would go off-grid and we did. I took my

retirement account and put in solar panels and a backup

generator and I've been living off grid and I'll tell

you it's great, no headaches, no insomnia, no heart

palpitations, nothing. I hope you don't give the

utilities the granted fees and crap they want.

Thank you.


for your comments, Mr. Nim.

Shannon Kig.

Good afternoon.

MS. KIG: Good afternoon. I wasn't even

sure whether I wanted to speak or not, so thank you for

calling me up.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Sure.

MS. KIG: And after hearing peoples'

testimony today I decided that, you know what, I do, I

do want to say something just based on my observations

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of the testimony that I've heard and the behavior of

the people around me.

And one of the things that I've heard a

lot is how these power companies, how their officials

behave in very arrogant manners -- manner very often,

very condescending, and they almost seem to be very

sure of themselves and their ability to break the rules

that the MPSC has set for them because it doesn't seem

to me that you folks are policing them, and that you

are enforcing the rules that they have agreed to abide

by. So I wonder who, you know, I wonder are you folks

doing your job, first of all?

And the other thing that really struck

me was the young woman who, she spoke for the State of

Michigan and I don't remember, she was from some

environmental agency, and she was talking about the

need, she was the one person who spoke out in favor of

the -- she didn't call them smart meters because we

know that's become a buzz word, so she called them

advanced metering, and how they needed the advanced

metering in order to save us money.

And she, the specific phrase she used

was robust access to data is needed. And it made me

wonder, well, is collecting that kind of data even in

the charter of the power companies? Aren't they merely

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supposed to provide us electricity? If they are

collecting more than that, aren't they going beyond

what they have given permission -- been given

permission to do? I don't know the answer to that

question but I assume that you folks do.

And I, knowing that there are so many

health issues, privacy issues, and that the smart

meters have been classified as a Class B carcinogen I

believe someone said, imagine if the young woman had

come up and said instead: I want to save you money and

in order to do that I'm going to put a Class B

carcinogen on your house; you'd think is, does she have

a disconnect? You know, is she even able to understand

what she's saying?

I -- there are many ways that the power

companies and the citizens can get together and decide

how to solve whatever energy generation problems we

have. We just heard a man who, he went off the grid.

He's all solar. He's not any kind of burden on the

system.

And we can make moves towards that

direction and, and solve any energy generation problems

that we have. We don't need to, to choose toxic

solutions to these problems.

And finally the body language, and I

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can't, this is my simple observation, the body language

of the public officials that I've observed has been --

not of everyone, but of some of the people here, they

have appear to be very condescending to the citizens

who are coming before you to give their honest

testimony about their experience.

And if that is the situation that we're

facing, when we're looking in our country where we see

tensions rising and rising between various racial

groups, between the police and the citizens, between

blacks and whites, and men and woman, if the power

commission is going to continue to abuse its power,

then I think what you're going to have is the citizens

will come to strongly resent the -- I think you can

hear that in peoples' voices the anger and resentment

that we are beginning to feel towards you people. And

I don't mean you, ma'am. I don't know you. And you,

you yourself have seemed to be very respectful.


MS. KIG: But towards our public

officials, do we really want to have the citizens

resenting them and increase the level of tension in

this country? Do you really want to be on the

receiving end of that?

And if you don't, then you need to act

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responsibly, and you need to act for the citizens,

because we are the ones who empower you.

Thank you.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Thank you so much.

Sharon Koenig.

MS. KOENIG: I'm Sharon Koenig.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Okay. Koenig. Good

afternoon.

MS. KOENIG: Good afternoon. I worked

in my earlier years in business with the Oakland

Livingston Human Service Agency in the middle

seventies, and I then went on to something else. But I

must say after -- this is the first time I've been to a

Public Service Commission hearing. But I used to hear

about the problems back then from the agency and I

don't think they've changed.

I think that the Public Service

Commission has really not done their due diligence in

working with these people, I mean the utilities, and I

think that they should be ashamed of themselves.

They, the Public Service Commission has

a fiduciary duty to us, the public, to protect us

against people who only want more money. And I've seen

this for years, and I think it's wrong. I think that

you are breaking the law. And I think that somebody

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should file complaints against whoever, with whoever

who can control this a little better than what's been

going on. And this is since the seventies that I've

seen it.

I was born and raised in Omaha,

Nebraska. We had public power. I never knew until I

moved here as a married person that people made money

off the public utilities. They aren't even public,

they're private. And that was just an absolute

aberration to me.

So I hope that somebody takes this to

heart and understands that you don't need more money.

We need safe meters. I just heard that on -- there was

never a doctor's opinion submitted when the decision

was made to allow these things. That's unheard of.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself. That's it.

Thank you.


Ms. Koenig.

Suzanne Yarbrough.

MS. YARBROGH: Hi.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Good afternoon.

MS. YARBROGH: Good afternoon. Thank

you for having this hearing.

Your press release about this hearing

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did indicate that we could ask questions so I would

like to know: Who is going to answer my questions?

JUDGE SONNEBORN: The Commission's Staff

attorney, Mr. Filler, will be your conduit to any staff

member who he believes may best be able to provide you

with answers to your questions.

MS. YARBROUGH: Okay. How do you spell

his name; F-i-l-e-r?

JUDGE SONNEBORN: F-i-l-l-e-r.

MS. YARBROUGH: Okay. Thank you for

that.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: You're welcome.

MS. YARBROUGH: Okay. Does anyone at

the MPSC take an oath to uphold the US and the Michigan

Constitution? That's my first question.

Second question: How does a monitoring

device that monitors and records every electric

movement on someone's private property not violate

reasonable expectation to privacy?

Third question: Why doesn't the MPSC

make sure that the harmonics and transients on the

lines are safe?

Fourth question: Why hasn't there been

any independent safety testing on these meters? It's

only industry-funded studies. So I think there really

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should be independent safety testing.

Also I sent in a FOIA request of how

many complaints received on smart meters to the MPSC

and they told me 1,734.

The complaint process to me is

non-existent. My so-called investigator can just say,

you know, we can't help you any further. That's what

they've said, and his name was Jake Thalen.

Anyways, it does appear to me that the

MPSC does not take Michigan citizens' complaints

seriously, actually telling us that our health was

insignificant. And responding to peoples' complaints

that had doctor's notes, they wrote no prima facie

which there should be a new rule, no hazardous smart

meter anywhere in Michigan.

And here is Exhibit A, DTE's leaked

document: How the Meter Overheats and Explodes. There

was two fires in Livonia, Michigan regarding the smart

meter. A man in Redford's home blew-up when he turned

his light switch on. So my friend spoke to his brother

and they said it was a smart meter. Geoffrey Fieger is

on the case.

So, let's see; one second.

There should be a new rule that states

that the Michigan Attorney General can not work both

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for the Michigan public and the Michigan Public Service

Commission. Court of Appeals Judge Peter O'Connell did

state this, that it was conflict of interest. How can

he possibly work for the public and for Michigan Public

Service Commission? Yes, it was stated earlier, the

fox in charge of the henhouse. It's very sad.

There should be a new rule, all

correspondence in English, not Latin; a new rule that

only a UL certified meter with a licensed electrician,

installed, not just somebody that does not have a

license. I have to have a hair license to do hair in

the State of Michigan. Whoever put that meter on your

home should have to alert you that they are doing

something to your home and give you something in

writing.

And here's another question for

Mr. Filler: Why isn't there any paperwork given

regarding opt-out meter or sign a contract accepting

the opt-out meter? We, we had a opt-out meter placed

on our home against our will, and I never opted into

this program. According to the 2005 Energy Act you are

supposed to request the meter. So I was supposed to

call and request the opt-out meter. I did not do that.

DTE told me we assumed you wanted the opt-out.

And there should be a new rule regarding

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full disclosure of the smart meter function. The data

that they are taking off of private property is

property of that property owner. So how can they just

come to peoples' property and take stuff that is not

theirs? Data is property. The data on your laptop,

the data on your I-Phone is your property.

It appears that MPS, the MPSC Staff

approved this meter without testing the full power

strength of the meter. 2.5 gigahertz is in the

microwave range. We have been lied to that this is a

radio frequency.

The word utility originated from the

Greek word you utilis. It is supposed to be

advantageous to one's life, not full of deceit, lies,

trickery and fraud. When a utility is doing this,

which that is what these utilities are doing with these

meters, it is no longer a utility.

So we want freedom to choose analog

meters. We want it now. And we the people have

spoken. We want freedom to choose analog meters.



Ms. Yarbrough.

THE AUDIENCE: Why can't he answer the

questions? You said we could ask questions. She asked

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four questions of him. Does she get an answer?

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Let me be clear. As

the Administrative Law Judge assigned to conduct this

public hearing and take the public comments for

transmittal to the Commission, I am precluded from

answering questions.

Mr. Filler needs to obtain information

from the relevant staff members in order to properly

answer Ms. Yarbrough's questions. This is not an

evidentiary hearing which we provide questions and

answers. This is a public hearing in order to accept

public comments at presentation.

THE AUDIENCE: Okay.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Mr. Ron Yarbrough.

Good afternoon.

MR. YARBROUGH: How are you?

AMI advanced metering infrastructure.

This is from a recent Michigan Appeals court case.

Primary argument was: Under current regulatory rules

MPSC allows DTE to put electronic two-way communication

device with two transmitters which violates privacy in

a private home. They have no authority under current

regulations to do so. The meter has two transmitters,

one transmits usage data back to DTE, and the other to

communicate with smart chipped appliances. It's called

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disaggregation, the term is. Even when the transmitter

is off on the opt-out meter, it's still the -- DTE's,

well, it's still -- DTE's technology has been developed

to provide -- okay, DTE's attorney stated that

technology has been developed to provide better service

to the customer. And I added this: Remote disconnect,

spying, microwave pulsing 24/7, fires, hacking, and

info given to law enforcement.

Who gives DTE the right to control

peoples thermostats, the programmable thermostats?

I know a couple cases where they've turned it, well,

this is PG & E in California, they turned the

air-conditioning up 4 degrees and another case where

they shut it completely off, the air-conditioning.

Who gives DTE the right install a

bio-weapon on peoples' homes without informing them of

the dangers? This is from Barrie Trower, Microwave

Weapons Expert and former MI 6; this is according to

our CIA.

Microwaves penetrate everything.

Radio-waves need an antenna. Pulse microwaves are

known to cause neurological damage, brain tumors and

cancer.

Smart meters are WiFi enabled. Russian

scientist says WiFi frequencies are a known recognized

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frequency that can cause harm.

AMI uses the WiFi frequency. AMIs can

never be safe. They beam microwaves into your house

and communicate with appliances back and forth.

Then we have interviewed, me and my wife

have interviewed people over the past few years, and we

got nearly 60 testimonies of various health complaints:

Ear ringing, heart palpitations, sleep disruptions,

skin disorders. And Dr. Steven Sinatra stated how

smart meters affect our hearts. According to

cardiologist Dr. Steven Sinatra's AMI meters can cause

your heart to go out of rhythm, cause you to go into

atrial fibrillation, plus they are very toxic and they

destroy DNA. He writes letters all the time for

patients to get them out of their house because of

heart problems.

And you factor in the WiFi, the cellular

cordless phones, the cell towers, the air, food, and

water and other toxins in the environment, and he said

it's a perfect storm.

Here's some more AMI facts: According

to at least two reports, Amy Worthington and Josh Del

Sole, everyone's blood cells are affected, that's

everybody's. They establish daily living patterns.

It's called disaggregation, I mentioned that term

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earlier, the word, the whole building usage is broken

down into appliance specific data. They are

susceptible to hacking because of RF. Data is given to

law enforcement. Fires are occurring because of AMI.

Data theft, it's called conversion,

violates Rule 750.362. It's called intrusion of

Seclusion, 750.539, even if you don't have AMI, the

mesh network covers the whole neighborhood area

network. So for instance, I'm the only one in my

neighborhood who has analogs. Everyone else has AMI.

Luckily the houses are kind of far apart so hopefully I

won't be affected too much. Okay. That's done there.

Who gives DTE the right to violate the

following laws: Michigan Penal Code, Act 328 of 1931,

MCL 750.539; it's a felony to install a surveillance

device on private profit without the explicit consent

of the owner.

MCL 460.62, Utilities Commission Act is

necessary for the preservation of public peace, health,

and safety.

US Code Title 18, Section 2511;

Interception of electronic communications without the

consent of transmitting entity is prohibited.

18 Code -- or 18 US Code, Section 113;

forceful -- forcing harmful, parentheses, anything

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above 60Hz radiation upon the public is public

endangerment and prohibited.

And then US Energy Act of 2005, as I

mentioned, no federal mandate, AMI must be requested by

the customer before installation can take place.

The Michigan Consumer Protection Act,

also The Precautionary Principle which is: When human

activities may lead to morally unacceptable harm that

is scientifically plausible but uncertain, action shall

be taken to avoid or diminish that harm.

Then finally, The Bill of Rights,

Article IV; The right of people to be secure in their

persons, houses, papers, and effects against

unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be

violated, and no warrant shall issue, but upon probable

cause supported by oath or affirmation, and

particularly describing the place to be searched, and

the persons or things to be seized.

I'll move on to the Michigan State

Constitution, Article 1; what business is it of the

DTE's, what appliances are being used and when? This

aggregation, taking whole building usage and breaking

down the client's specific date to establish the daily

living patterns.

In 2008, only 3 percent of the homes had

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AMI. After the first Obama Administration there were

43 million were installed. He signed the Executive

Order for the rollout and deployment. The last number

I heard it was 65 million. His Executive Order I

believe is 13,054. I'm not sure of the exact last

three numbers, 13,000, you can look it up.

Now there's been fires caused. Some of

the fires are a Livonia fire on October 25th, 2013,

fire causing extensive damage, AMI blew up in an

installer's face while changing the meter.

Lakeland, Florida, the whole box burned

up 3 feet from where the kid's bedroom was.

Lakeland, Florida, again, 178 AMI

replaced due to overheating.

Pennsylvania Apartments in February '14,

30 residents displaced, 16 apartments affected. AMI

outside of a shop blew up.

Report from fire marshal on AMI, he said

there's an usual amount of fire incidents.

A PG & E whistleblower testified in the

California Public Utilities Commission, AMI causes

fires. He was fired after being a meter reader for

nine years.

A guy named Pat Rigely said that there

were 1,000 meter readers, cost $70 million a year. The

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AMI cost $10 billion. PG & E is claiming 2.2 billion.

So in short we need total banishment of

AMI. If you don't have the meter on your house, even

though you're involved in the mesh network in your

neighborhood, even though you may not have the meter on

your house, the whole, it's called the Neighborhood

Area Network, it's the mesh network of the

communication back and forth from the meters and then

it's sent on to what is called a Medusa Meter, one

person in the neighborhood has the collective meter for

the neighborhood.

Anyways to start this off we need to get

a hearing on the Bill 4916 going, that will be the

first step. Then the next step will be total

elimination of AMI.

That's about it.


Mr. Yarbrough.

Michelle Rison.

Good afternoon.

MS. RISON: Hi there. I wasn't

intending to speak today but --

THE AUDIENCE: We can't hear you.

MS. RISON: I wasn't intending to speak

today --

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Can you hear me okay now?

THE AUDIENCE: No.

Talk right in the microphone.

MS. RISON: Oh, okay. Is that better?

THE AUDIENCE: Perfect.

MS. RISON: Okay. So I wasn't intending

to speak today, but I wanted to reply, respond to the

woman named Sarah. I think she was with the Michigan

Environmental Counsel perhaps?

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Yes, I think it's

Sarah Mullkoff.

MS. RISON: Okay. So she was speaking

of the necessity for AMI and its value for reducing

power consumption and avoided costs. And those avoided

costs, the way it's set up is for the, to avoid

building new power companies -- or excuse me, new power

plants. And there's another way of addressing all of

this. To -- the concept of one of the main metrics

that Consumer's Energy is using to justify the AMI is

the avoided capacity. And to do that, they're

installing 178,000 air -- wired air-conditioning

switches.

In the current electric rate case,

17990, they're looking at a cost of $43 million to do

that. In the previous case, the 2015 electric rate

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case, 17735, that was about $28 million. And I don't

know why there's an increase now, but those, those

switches are being given to people who have 220-voltage

central air. And they are they're supposed to

volunteer for that, and they will receive a discount on

their electric bills because when there is a peak load

they'll be able to dial that down. And they do that

voluntarily, and they receive a rebate for that of some

sort, a reduction in their electric costs.

So, but if you look at the quarterly

reporting rule, currently Rule 133, and you look at how

many customers are late on their bill each month during

the summertime, last year in 2015, there were 6,700,000

of Consumer's Energy customers that were at least 30

days late on their electric bill for July, August and

September. And that's, you know, of out of 1.8 million

customers you're looking close to 30 percent of people

that can't pay their electric bill. And those people

typically do not have air-conditioning, central air

that runs on 220-voltage. They have 110 plug-in

air-conditioning units. Those units, that's where the

real issue is.

So you maybe have 300,000 to 600,000

people who are plugging in with 110 and 110 is more

disruptive to the grid, the conditioning of how the

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grid operates, than 220 when that gets plugged in.

So you have this class of people,

300,000 to 600,000, people who are being left out of a

benefit of costing $43 million that 178,000 people are

receiving a number of benefits from. And the reason

again that those 178,000 people who could afford these

switches themselves, and who are getting a reduction in

their electric bills is because they can dial them down

and avoid building another electric plant.

But then you still have these 300,000 to

600,000 people who are not paying their electric bill.

And I don't have the exact numbers, but DTE, I'd seen a

number from perhaps 2014 that $16 million a year is in

uncollectibles for residential customers.

So you have like 43 million going to

these AC switches. And then you have an additional

annual 16 million about for people who can't pay their

electric bills. And so you take all that money

together, and if you actually addressed the root cause

of the peak loading which is the thermal envelope of

someone's home and you looked at changing their roof

color, ventilating their attics, doing something to

physically change their home to eliminate the peak

loading altogether.

And, let's see; so it just, it doesn't

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make sense that we all have to have these smart meters

that, you know, people are paying $750 million, net

present value, which is the billions of dollars over 20

years, the numbers keep changing. The benefits -- the

AG found that there was no benefit. It was very much

beyond -- below. And in the latest Court of Appeals

case of the AG's case where it's, you know, it came out

and it was publicized that the Court of Appeals said

yes, Consumer's Energy AMI case is completely

justified.

But again, Judge O'Connell, you couldn't

access his -- what you call it -- dissenting opinion

that same day that it came out, but what he said was

that it defies logic that the Court of Appeals did not

look at the information. So, and the numbers are

continuously changing and you're not really

addressing -- the smart meters do not overall reduce

the consumption, the usage of electrons and gas

molecules. They change the time that they're used.

They shift.

So you dial down your air-conditioning a

bit during the peak loading time, but, you know, you

turn it up later the day when you're not at peak

loading, so you still have to, you know, use the same

amount of energy to get your house comfortable again if

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that's what you depend on.

But you could actually ventilate your

attics and lighten your roof's colors and you would at

least reduce that peak loading effect. If not, there

are ways that you could greatly, greatly reduce it.

And you could ventilate the attics, you know, the

people who are really into renewable energies, you

could have small solar panels on the roof that are DC

powered that are not connected to the grid in any way

whatsoever. So you have, you don't have to justify

conditioning the grid in a virtual way for your power

factor effects and things like that.

So I guess that's probably the best I

can do off the top of my head. So thank you.


Ms. Rison.

MS. RISON: May I say a few more things?

JUDGE SONNEBORN: You may.

MS. RISON: The other thing I'd like to

say is that a good many of the people in here that are

here today probably found out about this hearing maybe

four days ago and have tried to learn about these rules

since maybe Sunday. And to really do justice to this,

you know, you not only had to read the amended rules,

but you need to read the existing rules. You need to

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know the two medical hold cases that just occurred, and

the definitions and whatnot that came out of them, and

how that affects critical care, and the shutoffs. And

then you would need to know about the quarterly

reporting requirements, the Rule 133. And you would

have to be able to to move all that together to really

understand what's happening. And overall, these rules

are written such that they benefit the electric

companies or whatever utility it is. There's nothing

in here for when they violate their own rules or don't

provide safe service to people. You know, it doesn't

come from that aspect at all.

You know, in the medical holds case,

they, you know, the people that were being protected

have smart meters. They have medical letters and they

can't pay their bills. The people that, you know, sent

in comments about how they were being harmed by smart

meters, they're paying their bills, they have medical

letters, and but they have they have a smart meter and

they cannot tolerate that technology. And they're

being discriminated against. You know, that's how,

how -- you know, they've got a medical letter as well.

How can it be accepted and justified in one aspect and

not another?

And then with the existing rules, Rule

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103, specifically speaks of discrimination and it

doesn't carry forward into the new rules. Maybe

they're in there somehow but if you read every page of

this, it's not written in here.

Then -- let me see if there's anything

else.

And, you know, in the medical hold case

that we attended, it was simply stated that this is

absolutely not about smart meters and they were

concerned about people dying. And there was a case

last year with CICO where a man froze to death, and,

you know, there was a concern about that. And that's a

quiet case.

It would be interesting to see if that

showed up, if there was a line item from people dying,

the Rule 133 reports. Those things aren't tracked.

They're just quiet cases, as were the medical hold

cases.

The, I mean what's going to happen when

someone actually does die from a smart meter incident?

You know, we, we sent in comments and people are

genuinely, I mean they could have died, where if you

had read what was, what was forwarded that Chris

recently received, there are very serious things that

are occurring.

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And it's heart breaking that, you know,

for the shutoffs that were, that have been spoken

about, the new rules, without notice. Currently, you

know, if you are shutoff you need to have your power

restored within one day.

And now, there's an exemption, kind of

an absolution that, you know, if it's extenuating

circumstances like there's an excavation or a pool cut,

you don't need to get your power on. You're not -- you

don't have to get your power on the next day. And so

many people here that's directed to people that have

had pool cuts and all the people living here that have

had their power shutoff speaking here today.

You're lucky I'm not going through every

page of the rules here. We'd be here all day.

The last thing I'd just like to say is,

you know, that the rule does state, Rule 101 (a) No. 3

that the Commission does have the ability to offer a

temporary waiver for these people, that until something

gets sorted out, could we please allow people to keep

their analog meters and keep their power on until

something gets sorted out? Because this is, I mean

what are you going to do when someone actually dies? I

mean what's going to happen?

And someone, Dominique read earlier from

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the staff report about Commissioner Sari's comments in

May of 19 -- or 2016 when the medical hold case was

opening up about, you know, we need to protect

vulnerable citizens, we need to, we need to have

programs of world class service. You know, residential

customers need programs that provide assistance to

special needs residents in our state. You know, so

many of the people here, they're elderly, their health

is vulnerable in some way, they need accommodations.

And then he said: Today the Commission

is making it very clear that we are giving the guidance

and direction to the utilities to work with families

faced with medical challenges, yet that didn't happen

in the medical hold shutoff cases 18098 and 18099. The

smart meter people, this isn't, this case is not about

smart meters.

And there has been new evidence that has

come through since the year 17000 6/29/2012 report,

staff report that said all of this was safe. There is

new evidence that has come forward. And lastly

Commissioner Sari said: These Michigan residents

deserve the opportunity to live a quality of life with

the assurance that life-saving energy service will be

provided. And from what you hear, what you heard

today, that is simply not happening.

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So please, please take advantage of your

temporary waiver, what have you, and see what can be

sorted out. Thank you.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Thank you so much for

your comments, Ms. Rison.

Is there anybody else who wishes to step

forward and make a public comment who hasn't already

done so and otherwise signed the sign-in sheet?

Thank you to all of the individuals who

presented statements today. Please know that any

person may also file with the Commission written or

electronic comments, data, views, questions, arguments,

and notifications concerning this issue that's before

the Commission. To be considered, those comments need

to be received at the Commission by no later than

5:00 p.m. on October 13, 2016, and they should

reference Case No. U-18120.

Thank you all so much for your

attendance and contribution to a smooth public hearing.

We are adjourned.

(Discussion off the record.)

JUDGE SONNEBORN: Let's go back on the

record.

MS. KIG: Sure, I just wanted to ask on

behalf of everyone, because I'm sure we're all curious;

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how will we know what the outcome of this hearing is?

How do we find that out and when can we expect a

decision?

JUDGE SONNEBORN: I don't know when the

Commission expects to file the rules that are being

proposed. I do know that once all of the comments have

been submitted and this transcript is completed, it is

considered transmitted to the Commission. I can't give

you a specific timeframe. Perhaps the staff

representative who is here today has a better insight

into that, and if so, he may address that with you off

the record.

MS. KIG: Okay. Thank you.

JUDGE SONNEBORN: All right. Thank you

very much. Off the record.

(At 2:22 p.m., the public hearing was adjourned.)

- - -

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C E R T I F I C A T E

I, Erin Stilman (CSR-3588), do hereby

certify that I reported in stenotype the proceedings

had in the above-entitled matter, that being Case

No. U-18120 before Suzanne D. Sonneborn, J.D.,

Administrative Law Judge with Michigan Administrative

Hearing System, at the Michigan Public Service

Commission, 7109 West Saginaw Highway, Lake Michigan

Room, Lansing, Michigan, on Thursday, September 22,

2016, and do further certify that the foregoing

transcript consisting of 167 pages is a true and

correct transcript of my stenotype notes.

__________________________________ ERIN STILMAN, CSR-3588, RPR-019261 33231 Grand River Avenue Farmington, Michigan 48336 My Commission Expires: August 8, 2022

Dated: __________________________

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1 state of michigan 2 before the michigan public …

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