Resident Pickets Fairfax Town Hall

Fairfax resident Yvette Wakefield is boycotting town hall until she gets a public apology from Town Manager Michael Rock for remarks he made to the Marin Independent Journal, which she says were lies and slandered her. Wakefield picketed from 3:30 to 5 p.m. yesterday, Sept. 13 and will be back out tomorrow or Friday.

“I was really upset about what happened,” said Wakefield.

The incident that sparked the picketing occurred on Aug. 22, when . According to a press release sent out by Valeri Hood and Smart Warriors after the incident, Wakefield was among a number of people on the lookout for PG&E installers, following a tip that PG&E might begin installing the wireless digital Smart Meters despite a .

It appears, according to police and PG&E spokespeople, that . They do, however, install them for repair calls, because they no longer manufacture the older analog meters.

However, a disagreement arises over what happened when Wakefield confronted the PG&E worker on Aug. 22.

In the IJ article about the Smart Meter confrontation, Rock is quoted as saying that Wakefield was “yelling and screaming” at a PG&E employee and “demanding that the police be called.”

But, Wakefield said that wasn’t how it went down.

“I should have been thanked [for keeping watch for Smart Meter installers]. Instead, I was vilified,” she told the Fairfax Town Council at the Sept. 7 meeting, before demanding that Rock apologize for his remarks.

According to Wakefield, she saw a PG&E truck at the Parkade with the digital Smart Meters in the back and went into a business to use the phone to call the police, town hall, and other Smart Meter activists. When she came out, she saw Rock speaking to the worker and waited for him to finish. Rock told her that the PG&E service repairman wasn’t installing the digital wireless meters, but was having lunch.

At that point, she said, she recognized the serviceman as a PG&E worker who was aggressive toward her in March, following a dispute over an installed Smart Meter on Main Court. The PG&E serviceman, she said, then made a comment to Rock that he had had trouble with Wakefield before.

Wakefield, who doesn’t carry a cell phone, then asked Rock to call the police on the man, so she could have him cited for assault from the March incident. Rock did not call the police until Wakefield demanded that he do so or she would go into a nearby business to make the call.

“I wanted the Fairfax Police Department to cite him,” she said.

Rock acknowledges that the Marin Independent Journal article got the sequence of events out of order, but says he was accurate in his description of what happened and that Wakefield became upset and “pretty excited,” and yelled at the serviceman.

The police report from Aug. 22 documents that Officer Rico Tabaranza was dispatched to the Parkade following a verbal altercation between the PG&E employee and Wakefield. Both Wakefield and Rock’s statements are also included in the report, as well as the PG&E serviceman, who said he was not installing Smart Meters without authorization.

However, the officer also notes that Wakefield was “visibly upset and animated” and initially had demanded that the PG&E serviceman be arrested for assaulting her. Tabaranza also reported that he had a difficult time getting a clear answer if the assault had reportedly happened that day or earlier.

Reports were taken from each of the parties and turned over to the District Attorney’s office. However, Tabaranza wrote in the report that “it does not appear the elements of assault have been met.”

Wakefield said, though, she was “absolutely shocked” when she read the article in the IJ and called Rock immediately to find out if he had really said what he was quoted as saying.

“I expected an assault on my character to come from PG&E,” said Wakefield.

She said she’ll be back in front of town hall picketing later this week, depending on her schedule, and hopes to spread the word to other residents and neighbors, until she gets a public apology from the town manager.

“I want everyone to know Michael Rock lied about me,” she said.