City of Washington is upgrading its electric & water meters to Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI)

Published: Saturday, August 22nd, 2026 @ 11:07 am
By: Countrygirl1411 ( More Entries )

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"The City of Washington is excited to embark on the Empower Washington Project. This project begins by upgrading its electric and water meters to Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). The Empower Washington Project is designed to improve service, reliability, and customer service."

When I read this "to improve service, reliability" I knew there had to be more they weren't telling us. I did a little more digging on these meters. Seems they can collect data on users every 15 minutes to hour. They also can be cut on or off remotely. How will the data be used beside what they claim for efficiency and better service? Why the need for so much data collection? I have to wonder how these meters will be used to control we the people. Also wondering how the new meters will affect our bills which are going up and up no matter how much we cut back on usage. Seems there is a lot the "government" isn't telling us.

https://www.washingtonnc.gov/departments/ami_project.php

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Concerned Taxpayer said:

( August 26th, 2026 @ 11:10 am )

How dreadful. WE do not even get a choice. This also makes our electric system vulnerable to hacking, something that is not so much of a problem now. Same for the water system. Rogue nations have been using hacking against utility systems both in America and in Europe, as the UK found out last week. Mechanical systems like our current meters are not vulnerable, but computer based systems like "smart meters" are.

In another consumer ripoff, they are using Tyler Tech for billing. Many customers pay with credit cards, something the city does not charge a fee for using. Tyler Tech pops consumers for a substantial fee for using a credit card.

This is terrible for Washington consumers. Why does the current council not drive a stake through the heart of this Frankenstein monster?

Countrygirl1411 said:

( August 26th, 2026 @ 6:17 am )

Thank you for the link.
Page 79 Replace all electric meters - 14,000 meters

Billing system they will be using mentioned on pate 82
www.tylertech.com

Says pay as you go since this will be updated hourly, I have to wonder what the pay to go actually means.

PK said:

( August 25th, 2026 @ 10:57 pm )

Here's the link for the funding for the smart meter (AMI) project, page 95
cms8.revize.com

PK said:

( August 25th, 2026 @ 10:45 pm )

Here's the link from 2023 for the smart meters page 75
cms8.revize.com

John Steed said:

( August 25th, 2026 @ 8:29 pm )

Has the money been spent? Was that part of the big tax increase? Can it be stopped? PK, you are right that citizens should be able to just say NO to these things. Will one of our new council members please bring the issue up?

PK said:

( August 25th, 2026 @ 8:21 pm )

From the looks of this going back in the Council Agendas, this was put forth in 2023. This is going to be costing the City millions! I wonder if you can opt out of putting one of these smart meters on your house for electric & water? I definitely don't think it's a good idea at all. How is this going to be payed for? Is this going to cause our bill to go up even more to help pay for these smart meters that we don't want or need?!?

Stan Deatherage said:

( August 25th, 2026 @ 3:56 pm )

Washingtonian: County Commissioners have very little leverage to affect the governing of cities, other than cut off the money, where county taxpayers might subsidize certain programs that The City might offer.

This I have voted to do in the last number of years, when I noticed that the corruption within the City of Washington government was far too pervasive.

Washingtonian said:

( August 25th, 2026 @ 11:58 am )

So what's new RH? The elected people betrayed the citizens a very long time ago. They wont even respond to emails. To them, we are just bothersome humans interrupting their devinity. The Dept heads runs this town, as we saw recently when the police dept got the city manager fired with one single public comment. "The city is not safe."
Have you ever made a serious call to a dispatcher? I find them mean. They think they are judge and jury, making legal decisions about your call on the spot, as if they are protecting the police from actually having to respond to a citizen. WHY? I've seen it many times over the years. Behavior like this comes from a bad culture within.
On another note, what responsibility does the County Commissioners have to protect the citizens of a town within? Everyone passes the buck. We become like rats in an unsolvable maze.

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