Living the Farce 1

There is good news. The SFMTA Board changed the percentage for a transfer of a medallion (they are no longer to be sold) from 30% to 20% of $300,000 and raised the cut for a "surrender" of a medallion by both Pre-K and Post-K holders to $200,000 instead of $150,000.

Director Malcolm Heinicke came up to me before the meeting, told me that he read my blog and said that he had no hard feeling over what I'd written about him. We shook hands like pals in a debating society. He added that he did pay attention to my ideas.

I imagine that this was his way of telling me that my writing had influenced the changes that he'd made in the above figures. Flattering - but I doubt that I really had much to do with it.

I think it was more like the old scare-the-be-Jesus-out-of-them-and-they'll-be-happy-with-what-we-give-them gambit. There are a few reasons for my thoughts:

1. Contrary to Heinicke, the financiers clearly did not "bless" the 30% loan. Rebecca Lytle of the San Francisco Federal Credit Union, who loves her work and has enthusiastically answered every question I've asked her in the past, politely declined to comment on the 30% figure; and her boss Stephen Ho spoke with relief about the drop to 20%.
2. Nobody else on the SFMTA Board discussed, debated or questioned the amendments that Heinicke introduced, giving the impression that the subject had been vetted and agreed upon behind closed doors.
3. Driver Tariq Mehmood claimed during public comment that he knew about the changes the Saturday before the meeting.
4. If true, this would be a clear violation of the Sunshine Ordinance. But, the existence of a rule has rarely stopped people in power from abusing it.
5. In any case, it shows that something other than the force of my prose motivated the amendments.

There was another theory going down on "The Street." Depending upon who you talked to, either John Lazar of Luxor and Jim Gillespie of Yellow or Lazar, Gillespie, Chris Sweis of Royal and Dan Hinds of National had either threatened to sue the MTA or had worked out a back door deal with them.

I asked Jim Gillespie about the rumors. He told me that he was "a Christian" and "wouldn't lie" to me. He assured me that no such events had taken place.

Gillespie reminds me of Ronald Reagan. He has the same ability to believe everything he says while he's saying it. I always believe him when I'm listening to him. Later in the meeting, Gillespie told God and the MTA Board that there was no enforced tipping at Yellow Cab. I'll leave it to the drivers at Jim's company to judge the relationship between his religious beliefs and his conception of truth.

But, do the amendments make the Heinicke plan a good deal?

My mother might have said that the changes were better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. $50,000 is $50,000 and 10% is 10%.

But, Heinicke is once again being misleading when he says that his amendments are "in line" with the Pilot Plan:

1. In the Pilot Plan - there were no separate categories of medallions. Whether Pre-K, Post-K or re-sold, they all gave the same 15% to the MTA and 5% to the Drivers Fund.
2. Under the Pilot Plan - any increase would apply to all medallions being sold. Therefore, capping the profit at $200,000 for a "surrender" has nothing to do with the plan that was worked out with the consensus of most people in the industry in 2010. If the price went up to $300,000 under the Pilot Plan, the medallion holder would get $240,000; at $400,00 the holder would get $320,000.
3. This makes the cut to the MTA either 33% or 50% for a transfer. The national average is 5%.
4. Under the Pilot Plan - an increase in sale price was to be based the Consumer Price Index (CPI), not Director Heinicke's thoughts.
5. The CPI that I just ran calculates that $250,000 in 2010 is worth $262,666.47 today.
6. As driver Tariq Mehmood and others pointed out at the board meeting, the combination of a slack tourist season and run-a-muck competition from illegal taxis and limos has greatly reduced the money coming into the taxi industry. 
7. This challenges the very idea of raising the price of the medallions.

In addition, "surrendering" the medallions instead of selling them would also apparently take the 5% away from the Driver's Fund.

There is neither a policy reason for the increase in the sale price nor for the creation of "surrendered" medallions except to give the SFMTA more money from the labor of the drivers who have worked to earn it. The MTA would gain $18 million over time from the Driver's Fund and $72 million from $300,000 sales.

Is it worthwhile to get a medallion "transferred" to you for $300,000 with 20% to the MTA?

Depends.

The $250,000 figure was chosen because it was doable without too much pressure on the new medallion holder. The down payment on $300,000 would be $10,000 more or $60,000 and payments would increase about $400 per month. Balance that against making an additional $40,000.

More important might be the difference between a "sale" and a "transfer." The 300 or so drivers who bought medallions under the Pilot Plan actually own or owned them. In a transfer, the city owns the medallions as an "asset." And, as we've repeatedly been told, the city can do anything it wants with one of its assets ... for the public good as is, of course, understood.

Another way to put the question might be to ask, "Would you buy a used car from Director Heinicke?"

More tomorrow.

A Reward for Playing by the Rules?

Brian Rosen is fifty-two and has followed all the rules. He's done everything that he was supposed to do to "earn" a taxi medallion.

Rosen's been driving cab five shifts a week (2,000 to 2,500 hours a year) for almost twenty years. He takes a lot of dispatched calls, knows the city, rides for orders in the neighborhoods, has a good driving record, accepts credit cards and treats his customers well.

He's also one of the few cab drivers who has health insurance. He pays $854 per month for a policy with a $2,950 deductible.

 Brian put his name on the Waiting List in 1993 and he's currently number 38.

If the SFMTA Board had not replaced K with the Pilot Plan two years ago, he would almost certainly hold a medallion by now.

If the rules of the Pilot Plan had stayed in effect, he would almost certainly be a medallion holder soon. The Plan called for one newly issued or re-issued medallion to be given to the List for every medallion put up for sale. Whenever the city put more cabs on the street, he would have received a medallion.

If the Taxi Services Staff Recommendations worked out by Director Christiane Hayashi in May 2012 (calling for one medallion issued to the List for every permit issued or medallion sold by the MTA) were to take effect, he would certainly get a medallion soon.

But, if the SFMTA's current proposal (based on a plan of MTA Board Director Malcom Heinicke that was rejected by a Charter Amendment reform group in 2007) is passed by the MTA Board, there is no mention of the commitment previously made by the city under every other plan to reward drivers like Brian for playing by the rules.

"I'm very concerned," Mr. Rosen told me stoically. "The anxiety I feel is very frustrating."

The City vs the Cab Drivers: Now!

How rapidly the past becomes the future. Yesterday morning I wrote a post about a bleak moment in our recent past and today I find that it could become tomorrow's reality. The SFMTA has a new proposal.

It appears that Director Malcom Heinicke has convinced his colleagues that he is an expert on the taxicab business and they have taken in his gab hook, line and sinker.

Certainly, I doubt that anyone else on the MTA Board is cold enough to come up with a scheme like this.

Philosophically, the plan holds that public needs are more important those of any individual - especially if said individual drives a taxi. ("The city needs money, driver, and we volunteer YOU to foot the bill.") If enacted, the proposed legislation (on rough calculation) would result in the transfer of $100 million to $200 million from taxicab drivers to the SFMTA over a period of time - maybe more ... probably more.

I haven't gone through the specifics yet but in general the Medallion Reform Proposal would:

• Increase the transfer fee to the MTA from the sale of a taxi from 15% to 30% while increasing the price to $300,000.
• Allow Pre-K medallion holders to sell ... er ... I guess the world is "surrender" (as if the drivers had stolen the medallions when, of course, it's the MTA that wants something for nothing). Anyway, the "holders" can "surrender" their medallions to the MTA for $150,000 as opposed to selling them for $200,000 as they could have under the Pilot Plan.
• Force Post-K medallion holders to "surrender" their medallions to MTA for $150,000 instead of selling them for $200,000 as they could have under the Pilot Plan.
• Allow the MTA to turn around and sell the same medallions for which they had just paid $150,000 - for $300,000.
• Leave the drivers on the Waiting List who have worked the job hard and served the public well for fifteen or twenty years, who have followed all the rules and were promised a medallion if they did so, who have chosen to drive cabs instead of doing other jobs or following other careers,  hundreds of whom are over sixty waiting for - NOTHING.

Maybe this should be re-named Medallion Deform.

There will be two Town Hall Meeting to discuss the particulars of this moral and political abortion on: 

Tuesday, August 7 at #1 South Van Ness, 2nd floor Atrium from 1:30pm - 4:30pm  & 5 pm - 8pm.

The following items will be on the agenda for the August 21, 2012 SFMTA Board Meeting, meaning that nothing we say at the Town Hall meeting is expected to have any effect. Talk about transparency, huh!

MedallionReformCalendarItemfor08212012_000(1).pdf 24K   View   Download

MedallionReformLegislationfor08212012.pdf 72K   View   Download  To Brad Newsham, Sorry, Brad, if I said anything unkind.

The City vs the Cab Drivers 4: Heinicke's Schemes

Over the years Director Malcolm Heinick has presented us with a few variations on a major theme. The basic plot has always been to take money away from the cab drivers who do the work and give it to the City. This is usually to be accomplished by taking individually held medallions and turning them into special medallions or permits that are to be leased to drivers or companies by the city.

But, since the specifics change, I thought that it might be interesting to see the reception that these designs have been given by the people in the taxicab industry (the experts in the business) before looking at a version of the plan itself.

There was a Charter Amendment group studying taxis in 2007. I didn't attend but everyone I've talked to about it tells the same story.

Numerous industry people (drivers, medallion holders, managers) gave their ideas about how the taxi business should be reformed. Heinicke was then either assigned the task of writing up their ideas into a report or took it upon himself to do so. His report, however, included no thoughts or plans of anyone else - only his own. The other members of the group all repudiated the report.

It should be pointed out that in 2007 the economy was booming and San Francisco was flush. The city didn't need the money that Heinicke proposed to take away from the cab industry. Thus, for Heinicke, politics appears to precede economics. The principle of separating cab drivers from their coin - of turning the industry into an "income stream" for the SFMTA - appears primary for the Director even if there is no pressing reason for it.

Director Heinicke's ploy popped up again in 2009.

After Christiane Hayashi was demoted to Deputy Director, she was instructed to present this plan to the drivers by the MTA Board. We were told that we could "tweak" or "make "improvements" to the gambit but it was to be the future of the cab industry.

The new Deputy Director then proceeded to present Heinicke's stratagem at a couple of Town Hall meetings. She asked drivers, medallion holders, company owners and managers what they thought of the plan. Then she copied down the comments and brought them back to the Board to read.

The people at the Town Hall meetings universally expressed loathing for Heinicke's disregard of people working in the taxi industry.. Jane Bolig, who then was president of the board at Desoto Cab, quipped that, if the plan was implemented, the taxi industry would "look like Berlin after Wold War II."

Medallion holder Mike Spain thought that the plan looked like it was "drawn up by a grad student." Those were two of the nicer comments. 

The MTA Board finally "got it" and set up a new series of Town Hall meetings that culminated in the Pilot Plan - still the fairest and best conception of how to improve both the taxi business and taxi service that anyone has come up with - probably because people from all aspects of the cab industy helped create it.

I hate to have to spell out the moral of this story but some taxi people tend to be a tad slow on the uptake.

In 2009, it took all the people in the taxi industry acting together to stop Heinicke's nefarious ruse to turn the cab business into a feeder stream for the SFMTA.

Single Operator Permits Hit the Streets

Dave Schneider, who is the thirteenth driver to be issued a Single Operator Permit (SOP), stands next to his taxi.

Schneider has driven cab for over thirty years in San Francisco but never put his name on the Waiting List. He sees these permits as correcting an injustice in the original Prop-K legislation. (For more of his thoughts on the subject see the end of the post.)

Dave seemed so excited that he reminded me of a fifteen year old who had just bought his first car and was trying to be cool. He says that he intends to drive Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday nights so that the other drivers of the cab will have some decent shifts. It's the first time in his career that he's had the choice to work when he wants.

The Evolution of an Idea into Reality.

The idea of "Peak Time" taxis has been around for at least as long as Schneider's been driving. It was given new life by driver and blogger John Han who first proposed "Single Operator Permits" during a Town Hall meeting a few years ago. Deputy Director Chris Hayashi liked the idea and ran with it. Why? It offered a solution to the eternal San Francisco problem of too much business at certain times and too little at others.

Han, Hayashi and others at the meetings originally proposed that the SOPs should be owned like an affiliate by a single driver who would be allowed to work a maximum of 60 hours per week. There would be no designation of what hours the driver should choose but it was assumed that he or she would naturally self-select to work busy times like Friday and Saturday Nights or conventions and avoid the slow times.

During the Town Hall meetings in the spring of 2011, the concept was modified. Hayashi thought that SOPs would be a good way to reward drivers like Dave who had not put their names on the List but nonetheless had driven cabs for 20 or 30 years. It was pointed out that older drivers might not want to put in 60 hours a week so the possibility of a second driver to share the cab was added.

The SOP's happened to mirror a longtime plan of SFMTA Director Malcom Heinicke for "Peak Time" taxis. The main difference was that Heinicke wanted the cabs to be driven at fixed times. There was some back and forth between the Director and the people at the Town Hall meetings. The argument that peak times actually fluctuated and changed with conventions, sporting events and so forth carried the day and 50 "Single Operator Permits" were approved by the SFMTA last summer.

The Current Plan: A Different Kettle of Fish.


The SOP's have morphed into a very different program.

1. They now have a single permit holder and will be run as gates&gas instead of affiliates.
2. The vehicles will be run for 90 hours instead of 60.
3. The vehicles will be bought and owned by color schemes.
4. The color scheme must be able to produce electronic trip data.
5. The color scheme will fill the shifts that the permit holder doesn't drive.
6. All conditions that apply to a regular medallion will apply to these permits.
1. The permit holder must drive 800 hours per year.
7. The permits are for a term of three years with an option to renew for three years. 
1. The permit holder and the SFMTA both have the right to reject renewal.
2. If the permit isn't being used properly, the MTA can terminate at any time.

What Happened?

I interviewed MTA Investigator Mike Harris who is running the program. He said the changes were made because:

1. None of the older drivers wanted to buy the cars themselves.
2. None wanted to work as affiliates or choose their own drivers.
3. The hours expanded from 60 to 90 hours because the cab companies complained that they couldn't make a profit at 60 hours.

When I pointed out that this defeated the purpose of the SOPs, Harris disagreed. He said that most of the old school drivers didn't want to drive at peak hours. They wanted to drive Sundays, Mondays or Tuesdays and leave the busy hours (along with the drunks) to younger drivers.

One Beauty of the Taxi Business ...

... is that if you do something for one group of people everyone else complains.

1. Company owners and managers don't like the SOPs because they think that they won't be profitable enough.

At Green Cab, Treasurer Joe Mirabile said that he didn't know how they were going to make money off the SOPs. On  the other hand, Green didn't have to buy new cars for the first two permits that they put out because the company recently lost a couple of medallions. All they had to do was invest in a new paint job.

Desoto Cab owner Hansu Kim said that the SOPs would make little or no profit.

"They should either have put them out with one driver/owner for the 60 hours or just given the older drivers regular medallions," he added.

However, he also said that he would pay $1,000 a month to any Single Operator Permit holder who ran the taxi through Desoto.

2. Non-medallion driver and TAC member Tone Lee, who had strongly supported the original plan of one or two drivers and 60 hours, is very upset by the expansion to 90 hours.

I ran into him at the Mariott Marquis on Thursday and he talked about how slow it was on a night that was supposed to be busy and predicted that the SOPs would have devastating effect on the Monday night business. He also thought that it was unfair to give out the permits by A-card seniority rather than to people on the Waiting List and he feared that the permits would eventually be turned into full time medallions.

Of course Tone has a right to his opinions but I think he's wrong on one of his complaints.

He said the MTA was giving the permits to former medallion holders who had already sold their medallions.

I put the subject to Mike Harris who said that two former medallion holders had applied but he turned them down. He added that allowing former medallion holders to get permits, "was not the plan and is not the plan."

He said that anybody who knew the name of a former medallion holder who was given a SOP should contact him at (415) 701-5493.

If you don't feel comfortable talking to Mr. Harris, you can send the name to me and I'll pass it on.

Lee is organizing a protest for the MTA on Tuesday July 17th at 1 PM. Refreshingly, he's asking the drivers NOT to drive around City Hall and NOT honk horns. He just wanted drivers who are upset by the SOPs to show up and speak.

If you're in favor of the SOPs, you should also show up and say your piece.

My Take

I have mixed feelings. Like Mr. Lee I liked the original plan - especially the 60 hour limit. But, I also like the idea of rewarding older drivers who have driven for years but aren't eligible for an earned medallion. Besides, 90 hours is 50 or 60 hours less than cabs are ordinarily driven. This means that drivers stuck with the really bad hours are unlikely to see much new competition.

I sympathize with the drivers who didn't sign up on the List because the only reason that I put my name on it was that I was living with a woman who used to greet me every morning by bitching,

"Did you put your name that list yet?... No! ... Boy are you stupid!"

I finally caved just to shut her up. If I hadn't had the good/bad luck to be hooked up with this Harpie, I'd be in the same situation as Mr. Schneider. I'm happy that these guys are finally getting a little something after all the the contributions they've made to the business.

As for the people on the List ... well, unless the MTA screws them (not a possibility to be discounted) in the final plan, they should be able to either earn their medallions or buy them.

I don't like the expansion of the hours but I think that fifty cabs added on Monday or Tuesday peak times aren't a real problem. Increasing the fleet by 3% isn't going to break anybody's bank.

The real reason that it was slow on Thursday (and almost every other day) are the hundreds of illegal limos and taxis either racing us down the streets or bribing doorman so they can steal our fares. My number one priority is to encourage the City and the MTA to stomp on them - while our medallions still have some value.

In the meantime, congratulations to Dave and the others.

Dave Schneider	10:45 AM (19 minutes ago)
to Dave

I'm appreciative to the SFMTA and also to Chris Hayashi who I heard was one of the prime architects of the single operator medallion.  It seems to me it CORRECTS AN INJUSTICE IN THE ORIGINAL DRAFTING OF PROP K by then Supervisor Kopp. The way Kopp wrote it and, as amended  by Daly Ma and subsequent legislation,  DID NOT CREATE A TRUE SWEAT EQUITY BASED CRITERIA for medallion qualification - you had to sign up in addition to doing the work.     But many worker drivers didn't sign up for whatever reason and, while there may be some truth in "you snooze, you lose," still they did THE REAL WORK carrying thousands of passengers, driving lots of hours, shifts and miles.     They did the work by the seat of their pants.    Now with the single operator medallion, there's a chance the working poor might be able to move into at least the lower middle class and even pay off a few bills in what remaining time remains for these often elderly and impoverished drivers for whom the so called American dream has been, more often than not, a real social and economic nightmare.    In one San Francisco appellate court decision awarding cab drivers workers' compensation, the court compared cab drivers to sharecroppers working in the fields.    Today the taxi worker struggle in many fields continue and the the single operator medallion is one drop of welcome rain in the parched taxi driver fields.  Not only single operators, but all drivers should have fair working conditions, real wages and benefits beyond "independent contractor" poorhouse status. Dave S.

How Not to Do Politics.

'

 As I was walking by the small honk-a-thon prior to last Tuesday's MTA Board meeting Tariq Mehmood approached me with a smile. This surprised me. He usually waves his arms at me and shouts things like:

"Don't talk to me!" or "Leave! You don't belong here! You are not a driver!" or "Don't you laugh at me!"

He's been acting thus ever since I wrote this post about him. Naturally, I assumed his sudden conviviality stemmed from a desire to publicize some scheme or other in my blog. This proved to be the case.

Mehmood proudly pointed to the line of cabs circling City Hall and told me that he was planning a major strike.

"You mean you're not going to pick people up?" I asked. "Uber will be happy to hear it."

"This time we'll shut the city down!"  He said with a wide-eyed grin.

"Then maybe they'll charge double."

How Not to win the Hearts and Minds of the People.


Of course it would be impossible to seal off a city with so many ways in and out. (Is he going to block off Palmetto Ave, Brotherhood Way, Alemany Blvd, Brunswick St, etc?). What would be possible would be to shut down the bridges. This has been done before and the results of such an action would follow a predictable path.

1. The cabs would block the streets for a couple of hours.

2. Since no city can tolerate such behavior, the police would eventually tow the offending vehicles and arrest and fine or discipline the drivers.

3. The traffic would soon return to flowing (or not) as it had before.

The only lasting effect would be to alienate the public even more than those cab drivers who turn down credit cards. There is nothing that people hate more than being punished for something they didn't do. It would turn people, who might be sympathetic, against the cab driver's cause.

Think of what Critical Mass has done to win love for the Bicycle Coalition.

In short, blocking traffic would be monumentally stupid, meaning that Tariq will probably do it.

What cause?

And there would the problem of explaining why Mehmood and his minions would deliberately cause massive gridlock.

One certainly couldn't tell from the above protest. As usual Tariq substituted personal attacks for reason. Why should Hayashi, Heinicke and Ed Lee resign? (Ed Lee????) We don't know. A guy with a bullhorn kept kept shouting that "we" were, "against electronic waybills, backseat terminals ..." But would this win over the hears and minds of a public that's been stuck on the Bay Bridge for two hours?

 The gentleman in the photo below didn't know if he was against the noise or not.

"It depends what the honking is about?" He said.

"Basically, they're underpaid and don't have benefits," I told him. "It's not fair."

"I can see that," he said. "On the other hand, whoever said that life should be fair?"

"Wasn't that Spinoza?"

"Maybe ... Spinoza's complicated."



A Brilliant Protest: But How Not to Get a Message Across.

I liked this one. In fact, I wish I'd thought of it. I've got to hand it to organizer Brad Newsham.  He's quite the showman and he paid for the photographer out of his own pocket. This stunt did indeed get the attention of the press. The soundbites were there for the taking. But what were they?

An online paper The San Francisco Appeal quoted Newsham as saying that the MTA has been "abusing" taxi drivers, who he says are losing business to the private car service Uber.

"We've got an absolutely demoralized workforce that's being looted," he said.

Will Reisman of the San Francisco Examiner paraphrased Mark Gruberg of the United Taxicab Workers as saying,

"Drivers are upset about onerous credit card fees ..." and "... government overregulation ..."

Gruberg also pointed out that "the SFMTA gets a 15% cut" of $250,000 taxi medallion sales and "... hasn't invested any of that money back into the industry."

Catherin Al_Meten of SF Grandparenting Examiner described signs as reading, "We won't be your cash cow" and "Fire Mirakarimi."

There are no shortage of messages. In fact, there are too many. Some are ridiculous (Mirakarimi????) and others cancel each other out. Mark does't like "overregulation" but Brad wants to regulate Uber out of business. And, what are we to do about "abused" and "demoralized" cab drivers? Do we need group therapy?

Sorry. But there is no center in any of this, no concrete plan of action with which the non-cab driving public can identify. Given this potpourri of soundbites, the media focused on what most disturbs them.

Flikr descibed it as a "Protest of proposed credit card charges for "cabbies.'"

KRON 4 News asked on facebook, "Do you think 'cabbies' should have to pay credit card charges?" The count was tied at 4-4 at last ... count.

Reisman devoted most of his article to discussing credit card processing fees and the MTA's plan to cap them at 3.5% - about which Gruberg continues to harp, despite the fact that not taking credit cards is the one act for which the public most hates taxi drivers. Reisman writes,

"While the drivers and companies bicker about credit card fees, taxi passengers will continue to feel the impact of the argument. Some drivers, angry about absorbing the extra costs, are still refusing to pick up passengers who don’t have cash."

The journalist concluded with a story about a cab customer who was spit at by a "cabbie" when he tried to use a credit card.

Newsham's cab caravan was good theatre but, in the end, the mixed messages may have done little except feed negative "cabbie" stereotypes. The protest that the public is really paying attention to is the one the anti-credit card genius's are holding every day. Uber must be pleased.

How Not to Talk to High Ranking Officials.

Brad Newsham finally scores points.

But, first, Brad shoots himself in the foot.

Director Heinicke isn't going anywhere.  He's just been reappointed. Furthermore, for better or worse, when it comes to taxis, Heinicke is the most influential member of the MTA Board. Since, we can't get rid of him, maybe we should try to free his mind instead.


The self-proclaimed "most powerful and great leader the ..." taxi "... industry has ever seen" throws a "spontaneous" tantrum.

In recorded history, has anyone ever advanced a cause by embarrassing, insulting or threatening powerful officials?

SFMTA Board Okays Sales for K Medallion Holders Over 65

I should subtitle this : "But Not For Pre-K's - Among Other Things."


Specifically the Board okayed the following legislation changing the transportation Code:

1. Creates a ramp taxi enforcement program to hold ramp taxi medallion holders responsible to

ensure all drivers of the vehicle are qualified, and to require service to at least eight wheelchair users per month, with a $150 penalty for non-compliance, and provision for 90-day suspension for repeated violations;

2. Eliminates six month notice requirement for leaving the ramp taxi program;

3. Waives application and renewal fees for two battery-switch electric vehicle permits; 

4. Creates documentation requirements for applications to transfer a color scheme permit; 

5. Eliminates mandatory December 31 permit expiration date for permits; 

6. Eliminates the financial responsibility inquiry for driver and medallion permit applicants; 

7. Eliminates jitney bus provisions left over from the Police Code; and 

8. Re-opens the opportunity to sell medallions to individuals subject to the full-time driving

requirement who attain the age of 65 or older as of December 31, 2011, or who have a disability that prevents them from fulfilling the full-time driving requirement, clarifies that a medallion purchaser may sell regardless of age or disability, and that a medallion seller can be removed from the list of qualified sellers if they decline to sell their medallion within 15 days after an offer is made.

The item that interested most people was number 8. Since the legislation only opens sales to "individuals subject to the full-time driving requirement ... or who have a disability ..." it excludes all Pre-K medallion holders. Twenty or so of the Pre-K's (along with several K's) spoke to the unfairness of the measure. My favorite was the Pre-K who concluded by saying, "Why don't they just gas us?"

Indeed, why not? The poor dude would only get $3,000 a month for the rest of the his life, a figure that would warm the hearts of most people - except, of course, those who work for the MTA.

Please excuse the levity. Watching one Pre-K after another obsess about the injustice of their fates has been one of the more amazing aspects of the entire Pilot Plan process. These guys have made between $800,000 and $1,000,000 off a $10,000 or $20,000 investment and, as near as I can tell, they haven't stopped whining about it for thirty years. 


Or, as John Milton put it in Paradise Lost,


     "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."


On the other hand, there was no separation between the K's and Pre-K's in the Pilot Plan and no warning was given that something like this might happen. If there had been a warning, most of the Pre-k medallions would have already have been sold.

The legislation on this particular matter lasts only until the end of the Pilot Plan and is designed to keep medallion sales going until a final plan is adopted. Otherwise I probably would have been against the measure. 

Barry Korengold felt no such compunction and favored the legislation because he thought that it would give earned medallions to drivers on the Waiting List.

The MTA was divided on the issue and wanted to know Deputy Director Christiane Hayashi's reasoning.

(To read the rest of this article, click below.)