Net metering is/was acceptable when solar was a tiny oddity, but at any kind of scale it's a horrible idea. At best it's a regressive tax on the poor, and at worst it's a doom loop that can kill the grid completely. Utilities have massive fixed costs, which have to be distributed over all rate-payers; when wealthy people install solar and get paid back at retail prices, those fixed costs remain the same and power rates have to go up on everybody else not fortunate enough to drop $20K on rooftop solar panels.
The reason you were blown off on the call is because a representative democracy is supposed to represent all voters, including the ones who are harmed by net metering, who- being on average poorer- probably don't have the leisure time to show up on a call and argue on their own behalf. This is why "local community meetings" are antithetical to democracy: they amplify the voices of people with tons of spare time to show up and yell at community meetings, which is an utterly unrepresentative segment of the general public.