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 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.

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.) 

Tariq: Or, "It's True If I Say It's True."

There were 170 hours of Town Hall Meetings leading up to the creation of the Pilot Plan in April 2009.


Tariq Mehmood showed up at around the 160th hour, after the plan was more or less in place. Claiming that 90% of the drivers were behind him, Mehmood declared that the taxis should all be sold at auctions. 


This was similar to they way he behaved at the airport meetings in December 2010 where the record shows that he said,


"Each driver of the taxis industry knows me personally... 6,000 drivers are known to me but they cut me out.  I had to push myself into it.  As regard to the people, the 6,000 drivers, 18,000 family members has come to you to beg you."  

Tariq rarely mentions the merits of an idea. In fact, he appears to be incapable of arguing rationally. Instead, he takes a position then claims that he has 90% of the drivers or 6,000 or 18,000 people behind him. He once told me that my thoughts didn't matter because I only spoke for myself.

Mostly what he did in 2010 at SFO and at the 2009 Town Hall meetings was try to take over and gum up the works.

Selling medallions at auctions was a position that had already been discussed and dismissed before Tariq showed up at the Town Hall meetings because it would penalize both drivers on the waiting list and those with A-card seniority. 

He gave two memorable speeches at the Town Halls.

In the first, he said that he was fighting, not for himself, but for other drivers. He, Tariq Mehmood, didn't even want to be a medallion owner and had never put his name on the list.

In the second, he took credit for the medallion sales pilot program and praised Deputy Director Christiane Hayashi for her role in helping negotiating it.

At the last Town Hall meeting, Hayashi informed us that she had closed the Waiting List in order to preserve A-Card seniority for the purpose of future medallion distribution, which is a key element of the Pilot Program.

Mahmood started screaming at her that she shouldn't have closed the list without warning him. He hasn't stopped shouting at her since.

He was not arguing that she shouldn't have closed the list at all, mind you, only that she shouldn't have closed it before Tariq Mehmood - the man who'd claimed a week ealier that he didn't want to own a medallion - had had a chance to put his own name on that list so he could buy a medallion.

Flexible Reality.

The "truth" for Mehmood appears to be whatever he says it is at any particular moment. 


This truth was borne home to me at the August 8, 2011 TAC meeting that resulted in recommendations to curb illegal brokering that were passed by the Council by a vote of 14 to 1.  


Contrary to everyone else who spoke at the meeting, Tariq declared that brokering was a minor problem and shouldn't even be discussed.


My inside sources tell me that the practice includes from 200 to 500 cabs and involves millions of dollars a year.


Why would Tariq Mehmood, who lives in the milieu where the brokering takes place, deny that it exists?


A Man Who Lives to Hate.

"Tariq reminds me of the character in (James) Joyce who lives just to hate," a driver who'd known Mehmood for years told me.


The quote seems apt.


Hayashi isn't the first person that Tariq has trashed. Instead of arguing a position, he makes personal attacks on anybody who disagrees with him. At various times, this has included Mark Gruberg, Brad Newsham, Christopher Fulkerson, members of the Airport Commission, Sonali Bose and Tone Lee.


Mehmood and his disciples have sent dozens of attack e-mails my way. The one below is my favorite. It was supposed to have been sent by one of his goons but he can't hide his unique style from me.


"Bullshit and lies. That's what you are doing. Are you defending your girlfriend. Wait till she get fired. The die is casted. Murai did not defend her. I found Tariq the most powerful and great leader this industry has ever seen."


Mehmood, of course, has made a special project out of hating Deputy Director Hayashi and has spent over a year and a half going around trying to get her fired. At this point he probably can't even stop. He's boasted so often that he'd be able to get rid of her that he'd lose face with his followers if he failed to do so.


The 2011 Town Hall Meetings.


His animosity reached its height during the these meetings when he showed up at every one of the three two-a-day sessions to harass and verbally attack Deputy Director Hayashi for long periods of time.


The Town Hall meetings are intended to be democratic with people being able to speak without time limits as long as they are reasonable and stay on the subject.


Tariq Mehmood, who has accused other people of being communists, actually borrowed an old trick that communists used to take over unions in the 1930's. He undermined the democratic process by bringing an entourage of 6 to 12 people with him for every meeting. Thus, he had a built in majority for almost every vote and, even when he didn't, he claimed he did. In one case, he went out into the atrium next door with 9 of his disciples and returned to claim that all 7,000 drivers were behind him. 

Mehmood rarely stayed on point, constantly interrupted other drivers, monopolized the floor, repeated himself ad nauseam, and, incredibly, complained that he was not being given a fair chance to speak. His preposterous behavior would have been entertaining if he wasn't so vicious.


When he sat down, one of his disciples would usually take over to either express the same viewpoints or harass the Deputy Director. His acolytes repeatedly told Hayashi that if she did what Tariq wanted they would make her popular and successful among all the people of San Francisco, but, if she went against the great Mehmood's wishes, she would suffer the consequences of his wrath. 


Hayashi responded saying, "it's not my job to be popular."


In the end, the only thing that drivers not in Tariq's entourage agreed with Mehmood on was that they didn't like back-seat terminals. His insistence that the meter should be increased 40% was thought ridiculous and most drivers liked Hayashi's compromise plan on electronic waybills that would allow the MTA to gather statistical information without taking individual driver information.


Medallion Financial Of New York

Mehmood has repeatedly attacked Hayashi for conspiring with Hansu Kim of Desoto cab and Rebecca Lytle of the San Francisco Federal Credit Union (SFFCU), to cheat San Francisco cab drivers by keeping a loan company "so big it's on the Stock Market" out of The City. These  verbal assaults included a 40 minute diatribe carefully transcribed by Julie Rosenberg (photo) of the MTA during the Town Hall meetings.


Talk about Doublethink! 


Setting up driver loans though SFFCU is actually one of Hayashi's finer accomplishments and the terms the drivers are getting are far better than many people expected when the Pilot Plan was drawn up. 


Tariq's "Evidence" for a Conspiracy.


Hansu Kim introduced Christiane Hayashi to Rebecca Lytle.


That's it, folks! That's the alleged evidence. That's all there is. Nada mas.


In short, Mehmood's accusations are pure slander.


Some Facts.


A taxi cab medallion hadn't been sold in San Francisco for over 30 years when the Pilot Plan was put together and many people, including Mark Gruberg of the UTW, thought that nobody would loan money to a cab driver.


Deputy Director Hayashi had trouble finding anyone willing to risk money on such a loan. At one point, she invited more than 35 banks and credit unions to a meeting to discuss medallion loans and only four loan officers showed up. Three of them left before Hayashi's presentation was over and the other guy never came back. 


Even the San Francisco Federal Credit Union originally declined to participate because this was an untested loan program.


San Francisco Federal and Montauk Credit Unions.


Some time after the above meeting, Hayashi was contacted by the Montauk Credit Union of New York (which has a lot of experience making loans to cab drivers) to get the ball rolling. Then,  Rebecca Lytle became Vice President of Lending at the SF Federal Credit union and became interested in the Pilot Program. Lytle worked with the Montauk Credit Union and convinced her superiors at her  uredit union to rethink their opposition to medallion loans.


The result is the Pilot Plan Sales Program that is tailored to San Francisco's unique situation.


Two things that both Hayashi and the drivers who helped draft the Pilot Plan insisted on were: (1) there be no prepayment or other hidden fees and (2) that the loan payments be no larger than the monthly amount that a taxi company pays a "gates & gas" medallion holder. 


Both of these conditions have been met by Montauk and SFFCU. The program has been going on for a little over a year and about 150 cab drivers have received loans. So far, no cab driver has been turned down for a loan nor has anyone defaulted on a loan. In fact, no driver has even missed a payment.


Ms. Lytle says, 


"We’ve moved our rates down twice now because of movement downward in the interest rate markets and because we’ve gained a little more knowledge about the borrowers ..." 


For a look at the San Francisco Federal Credit Union's current rates click here.


So, are San Francisco's taxi drivers being cheated by Christiane, Rebecca and Hansu?


What Rates?

A good way to answer that question might be to compare SFFCU's rates with the rates of Tariq Mehmood's favorite loan company.


The problem is that - unlike SFFCU or Bank of America or Chase or Wells Fargo or any other bank or credit union that I checked -  Medallion Financial does not publish its loan rates.


Why? It's one those questions that would seem to answer itself. If their rates were lower than the competition they'd certainly want you to know about it, wouldn't they?


And, they also hit their taxi customers with prepayment penalties. This means that, if drivers tries to pay off their loans early, Medallion Financial charges them penalties equaling three months of payments for every prepayment. Grotesque but apparently true. There are stories of cab drivers who've paid on their loans for years only to discover that they owed Medallion Financial more money than they had borrowed in the first place.


And, Tariq Mehmood has accused Deputy Director Christiane Hayashi of not letting this company do business in San Francisco. Can you imagine that?


But, like so much that Mehmood says, it's simply not true. 


The Deputy Director will allow any loan company that meets her criteria to do business here. Medallion Financial did inquire about making taxi medallion loans locally and Hayashi sent them her guidelines (i.e. No prepayment penalties or other hidden fees, payments be no larger than the monthly amount that a taxi company pays a "gates & gas" medallion holder.) 


Medallion Financial never got back to her.


So Why Does Tariq Mehmood Keep Trying to Bring Medallion Financial into San Francisco?


Is that another question that answers itself?


A driver who had aligned herself with Mehmood during the first few summer protests changed her mind after watching Tariq spend 3 or 4 hours a night at the airport trying to sell drivers on Medallion Financial. 

"He'd tell them not to worry about the prepayment penalties because nobody paid off their loans early," she said. 

Tariq Mehmood, the self-proclaimed "powerful and great leader of the taxicab drivers," has repeatedly declared that he has no connection with Medallion Financial of New York.

TAC 9-12-11: Or, What Happened to Civility?

Barry Korengold (photo) of the San Francisco Cab Drivers Association (SFCDA) had the dual and unenviable task of both chairing the meeting and explaining his proposal for modifying the Pilot Plan called, Limited Driving Requirement. Since John Han has already done a good job of covering Korengold's plan and other aspects of the meeting Taxi TownSF, all that's left to me to do is editorialize.

However, one idea that Han did not emphasize enough was that the reason for the MTA not to sell medallions outright was that "each one deprives a career working cabdriver from obtaining their medallion..." Indeed, the thrust of the proposal is to help the drivers at the top of Waiting List get their "earned" medallions and to keep the List going into the future. Korengold's plan could work, if you wanted it to work, and aspects of it were actually part of the Pilot Plan prior to the final cut.

Therefore, the behavior of TAC's Owners and Managers block toward Korengold's proposal was rude and inappropriate. This ranged from the patronizing sarcasm ("I can see that you've worked very hard on this but ...") of the Medallion Holders Association's (MHA) Carl Macmurdo to the open hostility of Athan Rebelos of Desoto Cab, Dan Hinds of National Cab and John Lazar of Luxor Cab. 



On top of this, Rebelos appears to have borrowed a page from Tariq Mehmood and packed the TAC with a group of eight or ten drivers. 


But, gosh, am I slandering Athan? Of course they could have all spontaneously showed up. The fact that they were all young, all on The List, all worked for Desoto, were all attending their first meeting and all wanted open transferability doesn't necessarily mean a thing. 


They all were also ignorant. One speaker after another said he was in favor of the "Pilot Plan" when what they really wanted was to end the part of the plan that "gives" medallions to drivers on the basis of their position on the Waiting List.


One of them said a couple of amazing things. 


He appeared to be about 40, said that he'd been on the List for 13 years and couldn't see any difference between his situation and that of Councilor Bill Mounsey who's been on the List for 15 years but is 65 years old. They could both buy couldn't they?


The Desoto driver also said that he was number 2004 on the Waiting List but 97 on the Buyer's List. Struck by the disparity of the figures, Korengold tried to find out where the driver got those numbers (which seemed to annoy some people) but he didn't get a satisfactory answer.


At any rate, the driver clearly hadn't thought his position through. If the MTA stops giving away "earned" medallions, the Waiting List and the Buyer's List would become one and the same and he'd have 2003 buyers in front of him. The best outcome for him would be a continuation of things as they are.


The main person in the room actually defending the Pilot Plan was Barry Korengold. He's also one of the few people on the TAC who's interested in doing anything other than feeding his own face. From a personal standpoint, the best outcome for Korengold would be an open auction with no age limit. Instead, he remembers his roots and is trying to do something for people who are in the same situation as he was in a few years ago. Whether you like his ideas or not, he deserved a hell of a lot more respect than he was shown at the TAC meeting Monday.


Some people told me that they thought Korengold shouldn't have chaired a meeting where he was presenting a proposal. He would probably agree but he didn't have a choice. Chris Sweis, the usual chair, couldn't be there. Some people thought that Korengold got a little angry but he was dealing with a lot of hostility and probably did better than I would have under the same circumstances. Some people thought Barry talked too much but he'd been waiting a year to speak and look at who's complaining:

Dan Hinds and Carl Macmurdo who took up three whole meetings forcing a vote on a subject that wasn't even on the agenda. And, Athan Rebelos and John Lazar who voted to make themselves and their children eligible for medallions without having to follow the same rules as a working taxi driver. 

Lazar's sidekick, Charles Rathbone (photo), topped them all by rudely shouting out that Korengold had already spoken 30 times - A ridiculous and asinine accusation since he was both chairing the meeting and explaining his proposal. As Korengold pointed out, Rathbone shouldn't have been speaking at all. It wasn't during public comment and he isn't even on the council - for good reason. The only person Rathbone represents is his master.


But I digress ...


Dan Hinds tried to force a vote on Korengold's proposal but Barry said that he was only trying to open up a discussion. Indeed, I think he's the only member of the TAC to even address the problems of the people on the Waiting List or the Driver's Fund.


The Owners and Managers Block, on the other hand, doesn't see a problem. Hinds and Macmurdo, both of whom got their own medallions by waiting on the List, along with  Lazar and company want to stop the MTA from giving out any more "earned" medallions to working drivers and make everybody buyers.


I ended my first post on the Taxi Advisory Council by writing, 


"Given the make-up of the council, it would behoove drivers on the Waiting List and ordinary drivers to attend. It's a good idea anyway."


I would add a note of urgency. If you guys don't start showing up at the TAC and MTA Board meetings, nobody's going to know you exist.


And, if anybody has any ideas or proposals about the Waiting List, the Driver's Fund, driver retirement, medical insurance or any other subject relating to the Pilot Plan you should send them to Chair Chris Sweis before the next TAC meeting on Monday the 26th.

SFMTA Board Okays Meter Increase and 87 New Taxis

The threatened honkathon was a non-event yesterday.


Tariq Mehmood claimed that he called off his taxi strike to give the SFMTA to make changes he liked. But, I think he was really reading the same tea leaves I was. I had lunch in the plaza across from City Hall at 12:30 P.M and, in the half hour I sat eating, only 3 cabs came by looking for a protest.


But on to the business that was.


1. The Meter Increase


The topic for a vote by the SFMTA Board was actually whether or not to increase the flag drop by 40 cents to $3.50. The MTA had already okayed a meter increase of 10 cents for every 1/5th of a mile and 10 cents per minute of waiting time.


The measure was a slam dunk. Not only did the board pass it with a unanimous voice vote but hardly anyone spoke against it. A few people expressed fears that the raise would lose business and others asked for cost of living reviews every couple of years but that was it.


The raise of both the meter and the drop will equal about a 24% increase in the cost of a fare.


2. The second vote was on whether not to put out 50 new Single Operator part-time medallion permits, 25 new medallions to drivers on the List, 2 temporary electric vehicles and to sell 10 new medallions to drivers on the list.


The measure passed 6 to 1, but the ideas of the MTA selling medallions and leasing the  Single Operator Permits proved controversial.


Mark Gruberg  and Barry Korengold both attacked the idea of the SFMTA setting a precedent by selling medallions saying that the organization had a conflict of interest. Possibly - but neither of these speakers addressed the fact that the 10 new medallion would be part of the 60 medallions that the Pilot Plan allows the MTA sell - more than 20 of which have already been sold.


 The 50 Single Operator Permits, on the other, took a lot of flak.

• Rebecca Lytle of the San Francisco Federal Credit Union and Desoto Cab owner Hansu Kim both experssed fears that allowing the MTA to lease taxis would undermine the value of taxicabs as well as lead to a future takeover of the taxicab business by the MTA.
• Desoto manager Athan Rebelos thought that the idea of the permits was not sound from a business standpoint. 
• Medallion holder Christopher Fulkerson expressed fears that the drivers of these vehicles would lose money.

The most entertaining objections, however, were put forth by John Lazar  of Luxor Cab and Jim Gillespie of Yellow Cab. 

First, they tried to delay the measure by claiming a legal technicality that the MTA's attorney noted but thought unimportant.

Then, the owners claimed that they hadn't had time to study the plan for Single Operators and said that the permits should not be put out without PC and N hearings. Gillespie also claimed that the subject hadn't been discussed at Town Hall or TAC meetings.

Tara Housman, John Han and I all pointed out that the measure had been debated at several Town Hall meetings in addition to being debated, voted on and passed by the Taxi Advisory Council, of which Gillespie is a member.

The idea of Lazar and Gillespie asking for PC and N hearing is comic. This dynamic duo has spent much of the last year knocking on back-doors trying to get 500 cabs put on the street WITHOUT PC and N hearings.

President Nolan of the MTA Board said that both PC and N hearing and cost of living meter increases should be done on a regular basis.

John Han (photo) was praised by members of the board for his efforts to make the Single Operator Permits a reality.

TAC 10-12: This and That

Most of the TAC meeting was concerned with leasing but a few other subjects came up.

1. Chris Hayashi, wearing her flashiest dress ever, mentioned that she was re-staffing in order to end various backlogs.

She also said that an owner/driver has been putting stickers on cabs calling for an end to Paratransit. The man apparently has a website advocating violence against handicapped people. Chris said that she has started revocation action against the owner and added that any other drivers who knowingly placed anti-Paratransit stickers on their cabs would face disciplinary action.

"This goes way beyond the rights of free speech," she said.

2. Hayashi has revised and re-written Article 7 of Division 1 of the Transportation code to add several new misdemeanors. I intend to write a post on the subject later but the ordinance would:

• Allow MTA investigators to fine illegal limos and taxis $5,000 for violations.
• Make enforced tipping illegal.
• Make it a misdemeanor for a customer to refuse to pay the fare.

The ordinance will go before the MTA Board on Tuesday 10-19-2010. Public comment will be allowed and is usually listened to by the Board.

3. Speaking of public comment, I quietly suggested that TAC's policy of requiring public comment to come before the council discussed a subject instead of after was, "unheard of, ridiculous and outrageous" adding that TAC was the only committee that I knew of that followed such a policy.

Much to my surprise, Council President Chris Sweis discussed the issue with me after the meeting. I told him that the public could make more meaningful contributions if they were allowed to speak after the councilors but before motions and voting. I was backed up in this by Barry Korengold who noted that both the Board of Supervisors and the MTA Board conducted their public meetings in the manner that I was suggesting.

Sweis said that his main concern was that my approach would be less efficient. I told him that I thought that doing it (taxi reform) right was important than doing it quickly.

Swiess said that he'd look further into the matter and presumably make a ruling on it next meeting.

4. Mark Gruberg of the UTW, in one of his stranger (considering that he's supposed to be representing lease drivers) speeches, passionately attacked the provision in the MTA ordinance that would make tipping illegal. He said that it would be unenforceable.

Nonetheless it'll be on the books, Mark, making it more enforceable the than nada we have now.

5. As the meeting was winding down, John lazar, out of the blue, said that the taxi industry was being run by an agency that didn't know anything about taxicabs and was doing nothing. He added that the room was full of people who really knew what they were doing, implying (I think) that the cab business would be better off if it wasn't regulated.

Director Hayashi  responded heatedly to Lazar saying, "I take exception to the idea that we've done nothing here." She went on to praise her staff for their hard work and accomplishments under trying circumstances; and pointed out that, among other things, they'd re-written all the rules and regulations concerning cabs and cab driving in San Francisco.

I would add that, while Lazar and his knowledgeable pals spend over 20 years trying to get the right to transfer medallions, Chris Hayashi is the person who made transferability happen. She also:

• Negotiated the Pilot Plan.
• Set up a realistic method to rid the City of illegal limo and cabs.
• Created the Taxi Advisory Council that has empowered Lazar to influence the way the industry is run.
• Etc. Etc. Etc.

Although I no longer think that Chris Hayashi is perfect, she's close enough for the cab business.

Next: More on Leasing.

It's $250,00 - Of Course.

$250,000 was chosen as the Fixed Price Sale amount at a Town Hall Meeting yesterday. The figure was a forgone conclusion. Of much more interest (if you'll excuse the pun) were the details of the financing that will become available to the buyers.

Attending the meeting were Louis Jimenez (photo) and Michael Turano of the Montauk Credit Union from New York City; and Rebecca Reynolds Lytle and Stephan B. Ho of the San Francisco Federal Credit Union. These two institutions have joined with the San Francisco Police Credit Union and the San Francisco Fire Credit Union to provide loans to drivers.

The team, of course, was put together by negotiator extraordinaire, Director Christiane Hayashi, who gave the presentation.

The loans will:

• have an interest rate of around 7%.
• require a downpayment of 5% to 20%.
• be amortized over a period of either 15 or 25 years.
• have a three year balloon payment that will be refinanced at the end of the three year period.
• There will be no prepayment penalties and no fees up front.

Credit unions are required by federal law to get a 20% downpayment on a loan. One unique feature of these loans is that the seller might have to guarantee the downpayment if the buyer is unable to come up with the full 20% or $50,000.

• If the buyer can only do 5% down, the seller would have to guarantee the other 15% or $37,500.
• At 10% down, the seller would have to front $25,000.
• At 15%, the amount would be $12,500.
• The money would be held in an interest bearing CD and paid to the seller when the equity in the loan reaches the $12,500 to $37,500 figure.

Payments on the loans will be about:

• $1,800 a month at 20% down on a 15 year loan.
• $2,100 a month at 5% down.
• from $1,400 to $1,700 per month on a 25 year loan.

The creative and unique way of guaranteeing the downpayment is the brain-child of Mike Turano of Montauk. It's a response to our unique situation where the rules of the game are changing too rapidly for drivers to have planned for them in advance. It shows the willingness of Taxi Services and the credit unions to qualify as many drivers as possible.

As it is, this might turn out to be minor feature of the Pilot Plan anyway. According to Chris Hayashi, most of the drivers who have sent in their Buyer's Participation forms say that they do have the 20% downpayment.

That the loans are possible at all is due to Hayashi's bringing Montauk Credit Union into the mix. They have expertise in loaning money to medallion holders in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.

Louis Jimenez, CEO of Montauk, said that he was attracted to the San Francisco market because he's found that individual medallion holders are very good risks. He said that he hadn't foreclosed on this type of loan in the last 15 years. He thinks that the only way he can lose money is if San Francisco does not continue to sell taxi medallions after the Pilot Plan is over.

Buyers will not be required to use only these finance companies for their loans. If they can get better terms from other qualified lenders, they are free to do so.

Tomorrow: What sellers and buyers should be doing.

The True Story of the Town Hall Meetings: A Radical Approach, A Revolutionary Plan

We people who took part in the Town Hall Meetings, who developed the Pilot Plan, know that we did things new and extraordinary. We looked at an industry where almost everyone was at odds with everyone else, where no two cab drivers could agree on anything, where there were at least three sides to every issue, where even the taxi companies needed two associations instead of one because they couldn't get along with each other and we forged a consensus, a compromise plan that gave something to every single faction and is backed by the vast majority of people in the taxicab business.

Even more remarkable was the fact that we got the SFMTA to sign off on the plan instead of stealing all the taxis and selling them like Mayor Newsom originally wanted.

This was an amazing, unprecedented accomplishment and I'll be proud to be associated with it until the day I die.

I was therefore stunned when I read press coverage describing a Pilot Plan that had nothing in common with the one we actually created.

Of course we all now know that the UTW, the one taxi group that refused to go along with the plan, had embarked on a campaign of misinformation, disinformation and downright lies for the benefit of local journalists.

It must also be said that many of these "journalists" were only too eager to be sucked in. I believe that this was mostly because Mark Gruberg and the UTW fed the press clichés with which they were familiar (evil owners and oppressed workers.) On the other hand, these pundits didn't exactly raise a sweat trying to discover the truth behind the lies.

My favorite one of these characters was Barbara Taylor of KCBS who reported that the plan called for auctioning off medallions and would lead to the taxi companies owning them all. I called her on the phone and got involved in the following conversation:

• Me, "You got the facts wrong."
• BT, "That's your opinion ... what I do is collect opinions. You have your opinion and they have their opinion."
• Me, "But all you have to do is read the document."
• BT, "I'm a very busy woman. I don't have time to read."
• Me, "But what you said was false."
• BT, "That's your opinion."

Then she hung up the phone. When I e-mailed her a copy of the Pilot Plan she spammed it.

We've been on the defense ever since. I think it's about time we change this dynamic and tell the world what the Pilot Plan really is and how it came about.

The first thing to know is that Plan is the result of negotiations involving every group in the taxicab industry that took place over a period of months and included: drivers on the medallion list, drivers not on the medallion list, medallion holders, taxi company personnel, the UTW, the MHA, the SFCDA, Director Chris Hayashi and members of the public.

Therefore the Pilot Plan is NOT Mayor Newsom's or the SFMTA's or Malcom Heinicke's or the taxi companies' or the "owner's" or Chris Hayashi's. The plan is a product of negotiation, it's a compromise, between all these people and groups as well as working cab drivers. It's our plan.

Coming Soon: How the Pilot Plan's provisions were arrived at.

The Phantom Answers Anyonymous

Lately I've been besieged with comments from a character hiding behind a cloak of anonymity. Sometimes he gives a name like "Dave" or "Anonymous #1" but more often he refuses to give a name claiming that he's afraid of retaliation from the companies or the Taxi Division.

As an ex-non-medallion holder who openly tried to form a driver's union and openly criticized policies of the companies I worked for, I can't say that I admire his courage. However, I believe that the main reason he is being anonymous is that he's one person pretending to be several and thus bogusly claiming to represent "how members of the Taxi community really feel."

He's hostile to the Pilot Plan and keeps looking for weak points to attack. If you respond to one of his jabs, he comes back and attacks from a different angle. Some of his rhetorical assaults are beyond ridiculous. For instance, he claims that if people who buy medallions are forced to follow a driving requirement, they would lose their medallion if they had to go away for five years to take care of a sick relative.

What can I say? ... Anybody who left any business for five years would probably lose it. At least a medallion owner would be able to sell the medallion and would be a lot better off than a driver who would lose his or her place on the waiting list.

Having answered that pseudo-question, I'm sure I'll have to field another equally ridiculous one in response. It's like dealing with an eight-year old who knows he's smarter than you are. However, I do think that he has some legit questions or concerns that I'll try to address:

• Buyers of medallions will be able sell them right away: They will not have to wait until they are 70.
• Director Chris Hayashi is not sitting on medallions. Since she's taken over she's put them out at a rate consistent with the years in the past as you can see from this chart.

YEAR # of Medallions Awarded

2000 85

2001 83

2002 26

2003 53

2004 28

2005 18
2006 52
2007 56
2008 106
2009 55
2010 9

• In the year since the SFMTA took over, the Taxi Division has put out 37 medallions. They will be putting out 5 more on April 20th.
• 2000, 2001 and 2008 were all years where new taxi medallions were issued. If you remove these from the equation, the average number of medallions issued per year is 41.

It is true that the Taxi division has a backlog of about 25 medallions but Hayashi says that this is only because she has been unable to hire enough staff to investigate and issue the medallions to new owners.

Anonymous is certain that the real, the true reason is that the SFMTA wants to hold onto the medallions until the Pilot Program is over, when the nefarious Hayashi intends to sell the medallions instead of giving them out to drivers on the list.

There are a few things to say about this:

• On April 16, 2010, SFMTA will be interviewing people for the investigator positions that Director Hayahsi needs.
• The medallions being held now are being given out on a basis of one medallion to drivers on the list for every medallion sold by the MTA. That is to say that she can't sell the medallions if she doesn't also give them out.
• Therefore it doesn't make any sense for her to hoard them.
  

Anonymous has also criticized the Fixed Price sales plan as leading to a possible bankruptcy tsunami like what happened when the old Yellow went down the tubes in the mid 70's.

When the final financing plan is my hands (hopefully in the next few days) I'll go into more detail, but the above scenario is very, very unlikely to happen for the following reasons.

• Old Yellow owned most of the medallions in the city. It's hard to see how 300 or so individual medallion holders could conceivably all go bankrupt at the same time.
• The failure rate of loans to cab drivers in New York City is 1/2 of 1% (0.5%) and New York sells their taxis at much higher prices than they will sell for here.
• Although I don't have the final figures, I've been assured that the loan payments the medallion holders will have to make will be about the same as the amount these medallion holders will be paid for leasing out their medallions when they aren't working them.
• Thus the medallions will pay for themselves. If anything, I would expect the failure rate on these loans to be even less that it is in New York.

For now, I guess that is it.

I've enjoyed the comments that I've had on this blog but I really don't want to continue to deal with the silly little games that this character has been playing. I would appreciate it, if in the future, people who want to post here would identify themselves in a consistent manner. Not that you have to use your real name (I'm not using mine on this blog) just that you do use a name and use the same one every time.

Thanks in advance.