How Demoting Christiane Hayashi Backfired

To briefly summarize:

San Francisco voters approved Proposition K in 1978 which put an end of the sale of taxi medallions.

San Francisco voters passed Proposition A in November 2007 giving the Board of Supervisors the option of transferring the powers of the Taxi Commission to the SFMTA. The Supervisors did so and the SFMTA took over the regulation of the taxi industry on March 1, 2009.

In January of 2009, Mayor Gavin Newsom, who had promised not to put medallions up for sale if Proposition A passed, came out with a plan to take all the taxis medallions away from the current medallion holders and sell them in order to cover San Francisco's $500 million dollar debt.

A Short History of San Francisco's Taxi Crisis: Bigoty & Cabbies, Part 1

An African American customer of mine was waxing sympathetic.

"I don't know how you do this job," he said, "I mean they're rude, they abuse you, they demean you ... it's almost like being black."

"Except," I said, "I don't have to drive the cab home."

But he had a point. The stereotype is almost exactly the same. Cab drivers supposedly are dumb, dishonest, lazy, dirty and smell bad. Although they're stupid, you have to watch them because they're clever and they'll cheat you if they can.

The cliché is also fed by the fact that many cab drivers are immigrants and minorities of various kind. Snobs who are way too PC to utter a racial or ethnic slur can still get their jollies by slandering "cabbies."

Of course labeling a class of people as inferior leads to more than mere insults. Inferior people are treated differently. If you want to complain about a bus driver, you call your local MTA. If you want to complain about about a cab driver, in most cities you call the police.

Far too many people would probably agree with the former Director of the San Francisco Taxi Commission, Heidi Machen, who wrote, "All of the ex-cons and alternative types who can't make it in another profession ... eventually wind up driving ... taxis."

At best, we're seen as a collection of foreigners and lowlifes.

Certainly San Francisco's "liberal" mayor, Gavin Newsom, was not thinking of cab drivers in February 2009 when he wrote, "Our job (during the recession) is ... to save San Franciscan's from losing their homes, losing their jobs and losing their small businesses."

On the contrary, Mayor Newsom intended to help fight San Francisco's budget deficit by taking the taxis away from San Francisco's cab drivers, selling them at auctions and keeping "most of the money..."

Newsom never mentioned the fact that his plan would cause most of San Francisco's 1,200 taxicab owners to lose their small businesses, their jobs and no doubt their homes.

"This city asset (taxis) has been underutilized and the (taxi) industry has underperformed," said the mayor who ran for election on a platform of balancing the budget. The city was $600 million in debt at the time he spoke.

And he talks about us underperforming?

That's the nice thing about spouting stereotypes. You don't have to worry about facts. If by "underutilized" the mayor means the taxi industry isn't paying its fair share, this is nonsense. The cab business actually pays millions of dollars per year in fees and taxes. Medallion holders alone pay $1.5 million per year in licensing fees.

If the mayor means (as he seems to imply) that he can solve San Francisco's deficit problems by selling cabs, he's dreaming. If he auctioned off all of the fleet's 1,500 taxis for $400,000 a piece, it would indeed cover his deficit. But (legal issues aside) who would buy the taxis in such a scenario?

Can you imagine the outcry that would take place if Newsom tried to pull a stunt like this in another industry? What if he decided to take over the city's trucking businesses? Or beauty salons? Or even massage parlors?

He would be condemned by the unions on one hand and civil libertarians on the other.

But cab drivers? Who cares? They're "underperfoming".

Mayor Newsom fought against a 1.395% business tax that could have raised millions of dollars for the people but would have hit his friends and himself.

Gavin Newsom apparently thinks that somebody has to sacrifice themselves for the good of the city but it's not going to be him or his cronies.

Let it be the cabbies.

Chris Hayashi on Illegal Taxi's Etc

I called Director Chris Hayashi of  the MTA'S Taxis and Available Services to find out when her Town Hall Meetings would resume but she couldn't give me an answer. Her office is swamped with numerous problems such as moving personal from the Taxi Commission and re-checking the qualifications of almost every driver who ever had dealings with Officer Makaveckas. It'll be at least a few weeks before she'll be able to plan the meetings.

She did say that soon after June 19th her office will start issuing the thirty or forty medallions that have been backlogged by the Proposition A changeover to the MTA. Most of the medallions come from either the deceased or revocations and will be handed out to drivers on the list ala Proposition K. 

Hayashi's department is also gearing up for a crackdown on illegal limos and taxis. They'll start by going after the cabs which she says are, "on the front burner right now." "The "initial stages" of the operation are already in planning. This entails a a lot of administrative detail. "The best work requires the best preparation ...  the groundwork is being laid so that we know when we do hit the ground that we are effective. I don't want to just chase them (the illegal taxis) around."

These preparations sound incredibly complex and include:

• Putting the Traffic Division under the control of the MTA which "will get more responsiveness from traffic cops on MTA issues and taxis is now one of those issues."
• Coming up an enforcement plan. "The airport has one," Hayashi said, "so we're going to do our own for downtown ... we want that before we turn the police loose because ... we want to make sure that we have what we need for the district attorney to prosecute."
• "We want to talk to the District Attorney's Office first, give them a heads up that these cases are coming , let his office know how important it is to prosecute these and find out what they need in order to make sure they can prosecute effectively."
• And of course they need to identify and find the addresses of the illegal taxis.

Hayashi's team is compiling a list of illegal cab - including four that I gave her. Drivers can help in this effort by sending their photos of taxicabs that they think are illegal to:  sftaxi@sfmta.com or they can call 415.701.4400 for with other information. 

Some things you might look out for are:

• A fleet of taxis with a 333-3363 phone number pretending to be yellow cabs. If would be helpful if the MTA knew exactly how many bogus taxis are in this fleet. So if you see any of these cabs try to photograph them. 
• Any location where you see illegal taxis parked - especially if it looks like a base address.
• Try to get license numbers, vehicle numbers, color schemes, phone numbers and any thing else that might help to identify the fake cabs. It might also be useful to take down the cross streets where and the time when you saw them.
• For now, focus only on the taxis. The limos are a more complicated issue so the MTA is going after them later.

One thing drivers should avoid, however, is any kind confrontation, vigilante action or citizens arrest. I can attest to the wisdom of this.  One limo driver I photographed last year threw a punch at me and another one tried to run me off the road with his limo. While I personally found these events entertaining, I sensed that my customers didn't. As Hayahsi puts it, "avoiding fist-fights is a good thing."

She would also like all drivers to check their brakes before starting a shift. San Francisco's cable car fleet is small.

Hayashi thinks that she can get $5,000 for every illegal cab she catches. She's looking forward to this "because the city needs the money." 

Once director Hayashi has "all my stuff in order ... it'll just be a matter of going out and mopping up the floor. We'll swoop down and pick 'em off one by one."

A Micro History of S.F. Taxicabs with Definitions

In order to understand the issues involving the Mayor and San Francisco cab drivers, a few definitions and a little background are necessary. For starters, it's impossible to understand anything unless you know what a medallion is.

• Medallion = a license to own and operate a taxicab. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that all U.S. cities have some form of medallion system. In all cities, except San Francisco (once again, correct me if you can) these medallions are for sale, usually at auctions. In New York City they cost upwards of $500,000. They are currently not for sale in San Francisco because of:
• Proposition K = which was passed by San Francisco voters in 1978 and gave the city a unique system. The medallions are not for individual sale but are owned by the city and the rights to use them are sold to working drivers for a fee. There is a limit of one medallion holder (often called an owner) per taxi. He or she can use the medallion as long as he or she follows certain rules. When the holder retires or dies, the medallion reverts to the city and the rights to use it is sold to the the first driver on a waiting list. Over the years, the rules covering the holding of medallion have evolved. Currently: 

1. It takes an average of fifteens years to get to the top of The List.
   
2. A driver has to have worked a minimum of 800 hours per year for five of the last six years to qualify for a medallion.
3. Medallion holders have to work a minimum of 800 hours per year to keep their medallions.
4. If the holders cannot work because of disability or illness, the medallions are be taken away and given back to the city.
5. The San Francisco Medallion Holders Association has filed a lawsuit against the above rule on the basis that it violates the American Disabilities Act. A verdict is pending in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
6. Proposition K could not be changed except by San Francisco voters. Numerous attempts to eliminate Prop K were all overwhelmingly voted down. 
7. Then along came:

• Proposition A = which was passed by the voters in 2007 as a way to raise money for the reform of the Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA). The money was primarily to be used for the repair, rebuilding and improvement of the bus and rail system. The measure contained a one sentence rider that put taxicabs under the control of the MTA. The Mayor took this to mean that the voters had overturned Prop K.

Definitions 

• Independent Contractor = those who have signed an independent contract with companies rather than work for a salary. All the cab drivers in San Francisco are Independent Contractors. It is an accurate description of the condition of Medallion Holders. For ordinary drivers, however, the contract is pure fiction. About the only thing they are really independent of is the protection of most labor laws. Thanks to a Supreme Court reject named Robert Bork, independent contractors can't legally form a union.
• The List = the waiting list that cab drivers sign up for the right to own a medallion. The medallions are awarded on a first come first serve basis.
• Medallion Holders = guys who have bought the right to own and operate taxicabs. Often incorrectly called "owners."
• Medallion Holders Association (MHA) = what it sounds like. An organization devoted to the interests of the medallion holders.
• Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA, SFMTA) = The agency that controls San Francisco's buses, light rail, taxis and other vehicular sevices.
• Transferability = The right to transfer or sell a cab medallion to someone else.
• United Taxicab Workers (UTW) = what is sounds like. An organization devoted to the interests of non-owner cab drivers. It's an association, not a union.