Wednesday, March 31, 2010

MTA Board Unanimously Okays Advisory Council


Yesterday, the SFMTA Board unanimously passed a resolution to set up an Advisory Council as part of the Pilot Plan.

Ironically, the Pilot Plan itself isn't quite ready ready to be voted on. The final details on the loans for the Fixed Price sale aren't yet finalized. Director Christiane Hayashi assured the board that everything will ready for a vote by April 20. She also said that the fixed price probably would be $250,000 but she couldn't say so officially until a public hearing was held on the subject.

Rua Graffis and others from the UTW criticized the make up of the Advisory Council for giving nine seats to medallion holders and companies and only six to regular drivers. John Hahn, a non-medallion holding driver, also thought that the council should have members from the general public and be balanced between regular drivers on one side and companies and medallion holders on the other. Driver Bill Mownsey attacked the Council for being appointed instead of elected saying, "They'll never pick me because I'm too radical."

Hansu Kim, Jane Bolig, myself and others spoke in favor of the Advisory Council, saying (among other things) that itl: would be merely an advisory body with no voting power, would allow minority reports, would be the only city government group make up solely of people in the cab business, and would be crucial in monitoring the effects of the Pilot Plan.

Although I didn't say so at the time, I don't think that this board will be as unbalanced as Rua Graffis thinks. Medallion holders don't necessarily agree with the companies on many issues, the small companies don't necessarily agree with the large ones and all working drivers have many issues in common, medallion holders or not.

Friday, March 26, 2010

More Hayashi Interview


Chis Hayashi touched on a few more things during our interview the other day.

The Pilot Program

1. Medallion Holders who are 70 or over will be sent a letter giving them 30 days to decide whether or not to sell their medallions during the Pilot Program.

The question of whether or not they would be able to sell their medallions later would depend upon the final Prop-K reform which would probably be decided by The Advisory Council by 12-31-2010.

The Advisory Council

The Advisory Council will consist of 15 members appointed by the Director of Transportation.

  • 1 member each shall be appointed from Yellow Cab, Luxor Cab and Desoto Cab.
  • 3 members shall be appointed from the other Color Scheme permit holders.
  • 3 members shall be Medallion Holders who are not employed as managers, dispatchers, cashiers, mechanics or administrative staff of a Color scheme.
  • 3 members shall be non-medallion holdering drivers NOT on the Waiting List.
  • 3 members shall be non-medallion holding drivers ON the Waiting List.
Council members shall serve a term of two years at the pleasure of the Director of Transportation. In the event of a vacancy the Director of Transportation should appoint a successor for the unexpired term

The Advisory Council shall prepare and provide to the Director of Transportation a report containing its assessment of the Taxi Medallion Sales Pilot Program and its recommendations regarding a long-term Medallion Reform program no later than 12-31-2010.

The Advisory Council shall terminate its operation two years from the date that all members have been appointed - unless the SFMTA Board extends the term of the group.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

The Prop K Reform Brochure


I usually don't duplicate other people's writing but I think that it's important for everyone to know what is in the proposed reform so I'm passing it along. I've added a few words and a comma, and changed formatting to make it read more clearly. On the other hand, I offer no explanation for the double spacing. This program has its own will.


PROP K REFORM


WHAT IT IS
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Board of Directors adopted a short-term pilot program for buying and selling Taxi Medallions on February 26, 2010. The Board also scheduled a public hearing for Friday, March 30, beginning at 2 p.m., in City Hall Room 400, to discuss and act on related Taxi reform measures.
  • Under the pilot program, only certain Medallions could be sold: those held by individuals 70 years old or older or who are permanently disabled and cannot fulfill the driving requirement. There are approximately 300 Medallion Holders who could elect to sell their Medallions on the basis of age, but no Medallion holder would be required to sell.
  • Medallion buyers would be subject to the same rules as other Medallion Holders. The Full-Time Driving requirement would not change under this pilot program. When a Medallion owner dies or becomes unable to drive, the Medallion would have to be sold to the next qualified buyer within a certain period of time. The buyer or his/her family could keep any financial equity in the Medallion, but not the Medallion itself.
  • The right that is purchased allows for the transfer of ownership through the SFMTA’s system for transferring Medallions (not on the private market), and to keep the proceeds when the Medallion is sold.
  • The SFMTA would identify the next qualified buyer by seniority. The seller could not choose his/her buyer, and children cannot not inherit the Medallion. The SFMTA would set a single price forMedallions during this pilot program to ensure that these purchases are for reasonable prices that could be financed by affordable loans.
  • The Medallion seller would pay a Transfer Fee from the sale proceeds, with 15 percent going to the SFMTA, and five percent to a Driver Fund. Through consultation with the industry appropriate uses of the Driver Fund would be identified, such as assistance to injured taxi drivers. Those authorized uses have not yet been defined.

Under this pilot program, the SFMTA also could sell up to 60 Medallions from those that are revoked or returned to the SFMTA for other reasons. These SFMTA sales would generate the emergency funding that is needed for the current fiscal year. During the pilot program, for every medallion it sells, the SFMTA would also issue one to a Waiting List applicant using the same procedure that we use today. The SFMTA would not issue any new Medallions during the pilot program above the currently authorized 1500 Medallions. Any new Medallions will require a Public Convenience and Necessity hearing.

The SFMTA would also work diligently to clean up the Waiting List as fast as possible to end it by getting through everyone on the list. Accordingly, the SFMTA stopped accepting applications for the Waiting List in December 2009. Once there are no longer any names on the Waiting List, the SFMTA will begin using original A-Card dates to establish Driver seniority so that individuals do not have to sign up and pay to wait for a Medallion. All active Drivers would automatically be on the list for a Medallion in the order that they started working (and so long as they continue working) as a Taxi Driver.

A taxi industry advisory group made up of industry representatives, including non-Medallion holding Drivers, would monitor this pilot program and make recommendations to the Board of Directors at the end of this calendar year about long-term options for Taxi Medallion reform.

The pilot program is designed to keep future options open. However, once Medallions are transferred under this program, those Medallions would remain transferable under the SFMTA’s transferability program unless the SFMTA were to repurchase them from the holders.

WHY

Proposition K (Prop K) was passed by the voters in 1978. It created the current system of Taxi Medallion distribution through the waiting list. Prop K required, among other things, that:

  • (a) Medallions only go to working Drivers, not to companies;
  • (b) a person could only hold one Medallion at a time;
  • (c) Medallions could not be bought and sold, but would be distributed by the City to applicants based on the date of the application;
  • (d) Medallions are the property of the City.
The list of applicants is also called the Medallion Waiting List. Today there are 3,200 names on the list. The people who are getting Medallions today waited about 14 years.

Proposition A, passed by San Francisco voters in November 2007, gave the Board of Supervisors the power to merge the Taxi Commission with the SFMTA, and as of March 1, 2009, the power to regulate San Francisco Taxis was passed to the SFMTA.

In the event that such merger happened, Prop A gave the SFMTA Board of Directors the power to adopt Taxi regulations that would override “any prior ordinance.” Prop K was passed by the voters as an “initiative ordinance,” and so under Prop A, regulations adopted by the SFMTA Board can legally override the provisions of Prop K as well as Article 16 of the Police Code that governs motor vehicles for hire.

The system established by Prop K has not been changed in 32 years. One of the lessons that the industry has learned over time is that the Prop K requirement that Medallions only be held by working Drivers has resulted in many elderly Drivers being unable to stop driving because they cannot afford to lose the Medallion income. This is one of many features of today’s taxi industry that has remained stagnant over time.

The SFMTA welcomes the opportunity that Prop A has presented to learn from experience and to keep those elements of Prop K that are most important and discard those that have not worked well.

SFMTA staff recommends this short-term, pilot program for several reasons:

1. It would be a one-time event to allow elderly Medallion holders to leave the industry to relieve the pressure that has built up under the Prop K system and to allow the industry to move forward without Prop K “baggage.”

2. It would be an opportunity to test assumptions about things such as the availability and affordability of Medallion financing, the ability to get the Waiting List/A-Card seniority system moving faster than it has in the past and to identify what unintended consequences might result from Medallion sales.

3. It would not preclude reform options for the long-term based on lessons learned from Medallion sales, positive or negative.

4. The pilot program would not affect qualified people on the Waiting List; they could remain where they are and wait for a Medallion under the Prop K system.

During the Taxi Town Hall Meetings, the participants identified the following goals for Taxi Medallion reform:

· Public service and public safety

· Driver quality of life

· City revenue: In other cities Taxi Medallions are treated as a business franchise, the use of a public resource by a private business. To identify new sources of revenue to support the surface transportation mission of the SFMTA, consideration is being given to Medallion Sales as a possible alternative to the Prop K system. In this budget year this revenue is urgently needed, and the SFMTA’s goal is to generate $11 million from this pilot program during the first half of 2010.

· Business stability: Taxi companies are part of the San Francisco system. For a prosperous industry, all of its parts must be economically secure.

· Entry strategy: Career advancement opportunities for drivers to keep them in the industry, such as the opportunity to get a Medallion.

· Exit strategy: Retirement options for Medallion holders and non-Medallion holders who make their careers as San Francisco taxi drivers.

WHO

Sellers: Any pre-Prop K or post-Prop K Medallion holder who is 70 years old or older as of December 31, 2010, or who notifies the SFMTA of a disability that renders him/her permanently unable to meet the driving requirement, could choose to sell his/her Medallion. There would be a time limit for Medallion holders to notify SFMTA of interest in selling.

Buyers: All the same requirements as for a Medallion applicant today: At least four out of five years as a full-time driver. Available Medallions would be offered to qualified buyers in the order of seniority on the Waiting List, and then in order of A-Card seniority. The decision to buy a Medallion is voluntary. There would be a time limit for potential buyers to notify the SFMTA of their interest in buying as part of this pilot program.

HOW

In developing this proposal, the SFMTA held many hours of Taxi Town Hall Meetings on the subject of Taxi Medallion reform. Written proposals from the industry were solicited, collected and reviewed and published for public review. Free copies of the compiled proposals are available at the SFMTA Taxi Services office, One South Van Ness Avenue, 7th Floor.

Meeting dates are posted in advance on the SFMTA website, www.sfmta.com/taxis. The regulations that have already been adopted are also posted on the Web site, and soon they will be published with the rest of the San Francisco Municipal Code, which can be accessed through the publisher’s website at www.municode.com (search their library for the San Francisco Municipal Code), or through the City’s www.sfgov.org website (follow the City Services link and select “SFGTV Channel”). Free copies of the most current regulations as adopted by the SFMTA Board also are available at the Taxi Services office.

A further vote on the short term pilot program will be taken by the SFMTA Board of Directors at the meeting of March 30, beginning at 2 p.m. in City Hall Room 400.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Chris Hayashi on the Amnesty Program


The SFMTA send shock waves though the medallion holder community with a letter that said it would be, "YOUR ONLY NOTICE AND OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SFMTA'S MEDALLION AMNESTY PROGRAM."

This gentle message appeared a third of the way down the letter but it was the first thing that I read. Only later did I lean that the "amnesty" was being offered to drivers who were "under the age of 70" as of 12-31-2010 and had not fully met the full-time driving requirement of 156 shifts or 800 hours each year.

Under this amnesty, a medallion holder who had not followed the rules would still have to turn his or her medallion back into the city but would not have a pay a fine of $24,000 a year or $30 for each hour that is "short of satisfying the requirement" ... if the medallion is returned by April 2, 2010.

This follows in the wake of medallions that were turned in by four former members of Royal Cab who were made infamous by Dan Noyes for allegedly never working a single shift: Lauretta Tacchini (a police captain's wife), muli-millionaires Jack and Sylvia Dudum, and Martha Barrakah (a paralegal).

The incident and the letter raised a some questions that I was able to put to Director Hayashi after Mayor Newson's hybrid sound-bite yesterday. I forgot my tape recorder (amateur!), so what follows is a summary of the conversation.
  1. Taxi Services is going after the medallions (which no previous director has done) in order to make the Pilot Program work. The permits are needed to move The List and give the SFMTA medallions to sell.
  2. Although she would not tell me how many medallions the SFMTA is going after, Hayashi said, "30 revocations are already in the works and 30 more are on the front burner."
  3. Director Hayashi is mainly going after "egregious offenders."
  4. If the medallions are not turned in by April 2nd, Taxi Services will revoke the permits and hit the violators with the above fines.
  5. Although the Dudums, Tacchini and Barrakah have turned in their medallions, the SFMTA still wants it's money, which could be as much as $240,000 each. A hearing is set on the matter for early April.
  6. Minor violations (like being a little short of 800 hours) will be dealt with by fines, not revocation.
  7. Hayashi wants to emphasize that although the companies must also keep records, the main responsibility for proving that they have met the driving requirement belongs to the drivers.
Jarvis Murray, Enforcement and Legal Affairs Manager for Taxi Services, added that his "main emphasis is to clean up this situation once and for all" so that by next year "we won't have the perpetual problem of medallion holders who don't follow the rules."

Hayashi finished by saying that the "goal and mission" of her department is to make San Francisco a place where people from all over the world praise the quality of the taxicab service. "That starts, " she said, "with having general compliance with enforceable laws."

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Dumb Cab Drivers: or the Skill of the Unskilled


I've been told that I was stupid a couple of hundred times when I've been driving a taxi.

I think my favorite was the time when a Safeway truck tried an unsuccessful U-turn, got stuck and blocked the street. Nobody was on the sidewalk, so I slowly and carefully drove up on it and went around the truck. Just as I was getting back onto the street some guy yelled at me at the top of his voice, "That was stupid!"

Now there are a lot of criticisms you could make of that maneuver, but I don't think calling it "stupid" is one of them. The knee-jerk use of the word simply points out the clique that all of us who drive taxicabs live with. In the rest of my 40 years of adult life, the only person who ever told me that I was stupid was an ex-girlfriend.

Indeed, the concept of the "dumb cabbie" is one most hallowed and iconic stereotypes in the entire culture.

Take you, for instance, gentle reader. You're probably thinking of the cab driver who couldn't find your place on Retiro Way or the one who drove in the opposite direction to go to the Bay Bridge or the one who pulled a left turn from the right lane at Third and Market against a red light. You're no doubt asking yourself, "How much skill does it take to sit in front of a hotel? How much intelligence? If they had any brains, why would they be driving a cab?"

In your heart of hearts, you think - you know - that, if you drove a cab, you'd have it down by the second day. If you're humble, you might think a week - or two at the most.

And you'd be wrong.

When I started working at Yellow Cab, they only hired people with perfect driving records. Within three months, these same perfect drivers averaged one accident, one ticket and one complaint. When you drive a cab, it's a whole different town.

While you know how to get to your place on Retiro Way (I hope), would you know the most direct routes (for some easy examples) to go from there to: Stillings and Baden, Magellan and Castanada or Avalon and Le Grande? And did you know that going Baden to Stillings to go from the Excelsior to the Sunset is the best short-cut in the city? It's $4 cheaper than going through Glen Park.

There are thousands of streets in San Francisco and dozens of ways to get to most locations. Some routes are better at different times of day, under different traffic and weather conditions. Learning all this actually gives people bigger brains and makes them smarter.

Knowing how to get places is only part of the job. The most consistent problem, of course, is dealing with the traffic. Your daily rush-hour commute may drive you half-crazy but imagine what it would be like to deal with such traffic for ten hours as I do every Friday night. I also have about 30 deadlines to meet while I navigate the mess. That means 10 hours of avoiding bicycle riders blowing through red lights, pedestrians wandering onto the street talking on cell phones, tourists taking right turns from the left lane after signaling left, woman pushing baby carriages out from behind parked trucks, runners jogging in front of me from my blind spot, and of course the guy in the SUV backing through a red light to get a parking place. Not to mention dealing with your typical brain-dead San Francisco driver - arguably the worst in the world.

Dealing with the traffic is only another part of the the job. If you are going to drive someone somewhere, you have to find them first. This means that you have to know where the customers are likely to be at different times of day. And every time you pick one up, you have to be planning on where you'll find the next customer when you drop the current one off. If you listen to the taxi radio for dispatched calls, as I do, you have to calculate how long it will take you to get to the fare and the odds of the potential customer actually being there - meaning the odds that the dude isn't going to step outside and flag a cab or call three other companies two seconds after calling you. If I spend ten minutes on a "no-go" on a busy night, it could cost me $10 or $20. Even sitting at a hotel requires the skill of knowing when to be there.

And then, there is dealing with the public. Coping with 30 unique personalities (not to mention yuppies who have no personalities but are pain-in-the-ass demanding) can be exhausting even if everybody is friendly and polite - a rare experience.

You know about rude cab drivers? Until you've driven a cab, you don't know what rudeness is. How can I explain this? I had 38 customers one night and five of them used the word "please." However, all of them put the "please" at the back of a command and used a tone of voice that people reserve for servants on TV. That is to say, I worked for ten hours without having one customer who met the minimal standards of politeness - a not especially rare experience.

Servers and bartenders also complain about their ill-mannered clientele but there are no witnesses in a taxicab. People will do and say things in a cab that they would never do in public. I could wax novel-length on this subject but, instead, I'll simply recount the low point of my driving career. A business woman (who appeared to be perfectly sober) accused me of taking her "the long way." I pulled a map out and turned around to show her that she was wrong. She leaned forward and spit in my face.

And then there is the actual violence with which cab drivers have to cope: the threats, the assaults, the attempted murders and the homocides - facts of life that are always at the back of our minds. Taxi driving is one of the most dangerous and stress filled jobs there is.

The people you think of as "cabbies" - the ones who race wildly down the street or don't know where they are going or refuse to take you on a short ride - are usually rookies. People who act like this don't last very long in my profession. As one old-timer put it to me when I was a rookie, "They don't make money, they get complaints, they get into accidents, they get robbed, they get fired, they get killed."

Taxi driving actually requires a high level of knowledge and skill. I've been a jack of many trades. I've worked in marketing, been an insurance underwriter, a numbers man and I'm a writer. I once did a study at the Bank of America that changed the way they did their traveler's check business. Some of my other jobs have required a more specialized (and perhaps higher) type of intelligence than driving a cab but nothing I've done demands as many different kinds of intelligence - and demands them more or less simultaneously.

Cab driving calls for a kind of hyper-alertness, a level of super awareness, that reminds me of nothing quite so much as the high I once felt as I raced down a mountain path in order to beat the dying light to the bottom before it turned pitch black.

Last Friday, for instance, I was driving up Mission trying to get my customers to a restaurant before they lost their reservation. I was moving fast and smooth yet keeping a safe distance between myself and the other cars. I was concurrently: checking the traffic flow for possible lane changes, scanning the streets for potential danger shots, paying special attention to the bus up ahead that didn't want to stay in its lane, checking my blind-spots, glancing at the computer to look for dispatched orders, and making repartee with my passengers in order to amuse myself and encourage them to tip large.

We were all laughing at a joke when suddenly a huge, white van swerved directly into my lane. I simultaneously hit my horn, checked the rearview mirror for tailgaters and hit the brakes. The startled driver almost lost control and the van swayed wildly from side to side before going safely back into its own lane. My customers couldn't believe how quickly I'd reacted, that I'd missed getting hit. But for me it was just business as usual - one of maybe 50 crashes that I've avoided over the years. And this brings up the most important kinds of intelligence that cab drivers need - flexibility and the power to make split-second decisions.

To drive a taxi well you need constantly to change and re-change both your plans your concept of reality. A route you expected to be open might have gridlocked traffic. A street you thought too busy might be clear. The business you expected to find might not be there and a customer can appear in the most unlikely places. The opera might be getting out 10 minutes late and those 10 minutes could take you half-way to the airport. Your friendly customer, Dr. Jekyll can suddenly turn into Mr. Hyde. The smiling guy behind you might pull a gun. A tire might blow out. The brakes can go. And, of course, you always have to be ready for that huge, white van.

You frequently have to modify what you are doing and react instantly to new situations. This may be what a psychologist/passenger had in mind when he told me that cab driving required more real-time intelligence than any other job.

So the next time one of us shows up to take your radio call, be respectful. We're more than likely smarter than you.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Letter to Skyler Swezy of the Bay Guardian - Taxi Turbulence



March 3, 2010

Hi Mr. Swezy,

I'm the 3rd guy who was standing near Bill Mownsey and David Barlow outside the hearing room - the one you weren't interested in talking to.

It appears that the cab business is simply too complex for the layman - at least the journalistic layman - to fully grasp. But, you've done better than most.

I suppose we are doomed to having Gruberg giving the main quotes in all the media's articles. He always speaks in the cliques that everyone is familiar with: greedy owners, windfall profits, medallion holders who get their medallions for "free." He's entitled to his opinion and I guess you're entitled to think he speaks for "the cab driver" and thus pass on a message that no one who is actually in the cab business pays any attention to.

However, there are a factual errors that should be corrected.

1. The pilot program was not the brain child Christine Hayashi with a the help of a few drivers. It is a plan that was hashed out over 175 hours by cab drivers, company representatives and others including Gruberg (who spoke for about 3 hours all by himself), Rua Graffis and Bill Mownsey. It was a compromise that was worked out by the various sides from over 20 plans that were submitted over the course of the 175 hours.


2. The fixed price sale was one of those compromises. An open auction was predicted to bring in prices as high as $500,000 for each medallion. We chose not to do this because we thought that drivers on the waiting list would not be able to afford them.

2A. The fixed price is to be set at price where a driver can afford to cover the loan payments with the monthly payments that he or she will get for leasing out the taxis when he or she isn't driving it. That is to say - the whole point of the fixed price is that it should affordable for the drivers.

3. The plan calls for the list to stay intact at least until all 3,200 names have been gone through. At that point, it will become a seniority list. There is nothing in this plan about ending the list. In fact, this plan kept the list alive despite the fact that Mayor Newom and others wanted to kill it by holding open auctions that would have brought in much more money to the city and the greedy medallion holders.

4. This plan also has a Driver's Fund, meaning that for the first time in 32 years the average driver will be given benefits.

5. At $200,000, 20% would go to the city and the driver's fund = $40,000. 200,000 - 40,000 = $160,000. There will also be a 15% federal tax = $30,000. $160,000 - $30,000 = $130,000. And there is a state sales tax of 9.5% = $19,000. $130,000 - $19,000 = $111,000.

6. Is this really your idea of a lot of money that someone would get for "free" after working in a job with substandard wages and conditions for 15 or 20 years?

7. In my opinion, the only one who gets windfall profits from this is the city - but that's my opinion.

For opinions on the same subject see http://
phantomcabdriverphites.blogspot.com/

Ed Healy

Cab 572

I see that number 6 is clumsy and confusing. It should read, "Is this really your idea of a 'lot of money for a person to get ('for free') after working ... for 15 or 20 years?"

I also see that I downplayed the role of Madame Hayash in my letter. Of course she was the mediator, driving force and ultimate arbitrator of the final form of the plan but almost everything in it came from one of us - that is to say, a working driver.

March 4, 2010

Hi Mr Swezy,

I did miss one thing in your article that's of importance and I also underrated the role of Chris Hayashi.

First, you mentioned that the cabs would be sold on an "open" market. This is totally incorrect. An open market would be an auction and these medallions will not be auctioned off. They will sold only to working cab drivers on that list. It is thus a closed market.

Second, once again this is not Chris Hayahi's plan but it would not exist without her. She was the driving force behind making those Town Hall Meetings an actual study and mediation of the possibilities for reforming the cab business instead of the dog and pony show that the Mayor had intended them to be. The fact that an actual reform plan was created by Hayashi and the drivers, rather than rubber stamping the Mayor's rhetoric, is the real story of this event - one that every journalist missed.

Chris Hayashi mediated and was the ultimate arbitrator of the final form of the plan but everything in that plan comes from a working cab driver. The fixed price idea comes from me. The driver's fund comes from Rua Graffis and Mark Gruberg. Maintaining the list comes everybody except the MHA, the cab companies and the mayor.

I've tried to tell every one of you guys what actually went on to create this plan and it's gone in one ear and out the other. Why? Is the idea too unusual? Are you only trained to listen to cliques? If this subject is too complicated for you, what are you qualified to report on?

On the other hand, I liked your title. I think summed up the situation rather well. Of all the articles I've read on San Francisco cabs, this is the least worst.

Congratulations.


Ed Healy
Cab 572

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Watch Your Language


Hi Mr. Healy,


My name is Sergeant Brian Devlin. I am a police officer assigned to the Muni Division of the San Francisco Police Department. I just finished reading your blog dated February 27, 2010. I am concerned about your statement, "For me, it's simply been the price one has to pay to get rid of an extortionist. But, if the dude wants too much more money, I'm going to have to reload my weapons."


Would you please contact me at 415 554-7156.


Sergeant Brian Devlin #396

SFPD Muni Division


Hi Sergeant Devlin,


My use of the word "weapons" in my blog refers to literary, verbal and political weapons. These include: logical argumentation, rousing speeches, sarcasm, mockery, wit, and politically organizing against ideas and policies that I disagree with. Last I heard, such activities were protected by the U.S. Constitution.

I don't own a gun or any other kind of physical weapon. I'm a believer in the principles of non-violence taught by Mahatma Ghandi and will only use violence to protect myself or my loved ones.

Sincerely,

Ed Healy

Brian Devlin to me;

show details 2:24 PM (1 hour ago)

Thank you for clearing that up.