"Generally, we're not hearing a lot from the public," said John Norman, the meter services manager in Arlington, which is installing 17,000 water meters through a pilot project.
The agreement will see Energy Assets appointed as the primary meter asset manager for Gazprom Energy's UK portfolio.
Next door, at Naim Burc Ticaret, its shelves jammed with sheets, towels and fabric by the meter, Huseyin Burc, the manager, said his business had fallen 50 percent or 60 percent in the past year.
It currently costs $1.25 per hour to park at the meters, but deputy city manager Ben Siegel pointed out that the rate was already scheduled to jump 25 cents to $1.50 beginning July 1 as part of a separate council action on the Village Entrance financing plan last year.
Larry Moorehouse's Oct. 26 letter, "We need smart managers, not meters," on smart meters raised a serious issue of priorities.
The new technology will notify the utility of outages and malfunctions in real-time, and will make it much harder to tamper with the meters, said Joanne Fletcher, assistant general manager of Burbank Water and Power.
"Right now, we've got berries ripening to 1,000 meters," reported Arthur De Jong, the environmental-resources manager at the ski resort.
John Phillips, the town's parking manager, said that the old meters were beginning to malfunction.
Drivers might be more likely to park and pay with a credit card system, City Manager Dave Kiff said, and the meters would simply be in working order.
("We see gaps of over a meter between your sushi plates — please fix," a manager said recently by telephone to a Kura restaurant 10 miles away).
Zanku, let me give you small, really good advice if you plan to stay on the Glendale Water & Power Commission: We don't need smart meters; we need smart managers.
