The Plan That Wouldn't die?

Despite unanimous loathing from cab drivers and company managers, Mayor Gavin Newsom's plan to rip-off San Francisco's taxicab industry remained the centerpiece at the Town Hall Meeting on October 9, 2009. Deputy Director of Taxis Chris Hayashi led the discussion with the aim of "adding to or improving" the scheme.

This gave taxi industry insiders a chance to see how dysfunctional the scam (which was adapted from MTA Director Malcolm Henicke's Charter Amendment plan in 2007) really is.

Unable to "get it," at one point I asked Ms. Hayashi to draw a visual representation. Jane Bolig, the manager of Desoto Cab, quipped that it would "look like Berlin after World War II." Medallion holder Mike Spain thought that the plan was drawn up by a grad student. Certainly it appeared to be dreamed up by somebody who knew little about business and less about taxicabs.

The great physicist Richard Feyman once said that the best solution to a problem is usually the simplest. Instead Newsom/Heinicke take a complicated problem and convolute it.

The taxi system as it is now.

There are three different categories of medallions.

1. There are about 300 Pre K individual medallions.
2. There are 96 Pre K corporate medallions.
3. There are 1,100 Post K medallions

The medallions are not for sale.

• They are given out to working drivers on a waiting list on a first come first serve basis.
• The list is currently about 3,000 drivers long.
• Holders of the medallions are required to work a minimum of 800 hours per year.

The major problem with the system is that there is "no exit strategy." Since they cannot sell the medallions and there is no retirement program in the industry, medallions holders tend keep the medallions until they die. This forces many of them to keep driving long after they want to, or should. Others pretend to drive and don't.

The upshot of this is that it takes a long time for drivers to gain a medallion. I've had mine for four years, for example, and it took me a dozen years to get it. While I personally don't think that this was an unreasonable amount of time to wait to own a piece of a business, there were only 1,000 people on The List when I signed up. The List is much longer now.

Heinicke's solution to this problem is to create yet another class of medallions called M medallions. These would consist of:

• All newly issued medallions.
• Pre K medallions that go back to the city as the holders die off.
• Corporate Pre K and Post K medallions that would return (through a convoluted route) to the city after all their holders passed.

Did I say convoluted?

• The corporate Pre K medallions would first be transfered to a living person who was a shareholder of said corporation as of July 1, 2009. Only when he or she died off would the medallion become an M.
• Post K medallions, on the other hand, who continue to be given out to people on The List but The List would be capped at around 3,000.
• Current Post K medallion holders would be allowed to retire and their medallions would become M medallions.
• The 3,000 New Post K medallion holders would not be allowed to retire thus keeping the current system with all its problems alive. As they eventually bit the dust, the New Post K medallions would become M medallions.
• In short, all the medallions would eventually become M medallions but the process would take 40 or 50 years.

The plan is actually more complicated than that but the less you know the better. Trust me on this.

The M medallions would be leased to taxi companies not to drivers. The companies would bid against each other at periodic auctions. Heinicke expects the companies to bid about $3,000 for each medallion. This would set up an interesting scenario. For 40 or 50 years there would be two types of medallions:

• M medallions for which the companies would pay $3,000 per month.
• All other medallions for which companies usually pay about $2,000 per month.

Why would companies that ordinarily pay $2,000 for a medallion suddenly pay $3,000? Good question. I haven't the foggiest.

Numerous taxi company management types were at the Town Hall meeting and they generally agreed on the following:

• Taxi companies could only afford to pay $3,000 if they cut back on services like the radio and only dealt with long term leases.
• The larger companies would probably drive the smaller companies out of business by initially overbidding.
• After they'd wiped out the small fry, they'd bid whatever they liked. Jane Bolig mentioned a dollar as a possible price.
• Another possibility would be that the companies would collude to keep the bidding down. This seemed like a popular option with most managers.

In other words the Newsom/Heinicke plan doesn't even work on its own terms.

If I'm a little more acerbic than usual its because I've wasted six hours of my time taking apart two pieces of paper that should have been shredded a month ago. Everybody in this business has already told the MTA that the Heinicke plan won't work.

This is a not very ingenious ploy to separate us from our money. Under this con all the profits in the business would eventually go to the MTA. The medallion holders would be wiped out, the companies would be reduced to leasing agencies and the drivers would become a permanent underclass with no hope of ever improving their status.

I wonder when or if Newsom will realize that, in putting his trust in Heinicke, he's riding a dead horse.

Last Friday's Town Hall Meeting was attended by people who were experts on all aspects of the taxicab business. They were and are eager and ready to come up with a plan that would benefit the companies, the drivers and the public.

When is Mayor Gavin Newsom going to start listening to them?

Mayor Newsom's New Plan to Soak the Taxi Industry

Yesterday, at the SFMTA's Police and Governance Committee, Mayor Gavin Newsom unveiled his proposed plan for taxicab reform. Although the presentation was made by Taxicabs & Accessible Services Director Christiane Hayashi, the plan was a modification of one originally drawn up by MTA board member Malcolm Heinicke during the Charter Reform meetings of 2007.

The highlights (really mostly "lowlights") of the plan are:

• The gradual destruction of the Prop K waiting list. The list would be cut off at 5 years ago, meaning that 178 people who thought they were in line for a medallion would get the shaft. Medallions would be given out as usual for the rest of the people on the list until the list was exhausted. Prop K would then be kaput.
• Post K medallion holders would be allowed to retire with an annuity estimated at $1,500 a month.
• Pre K medallion holders would be allowed to die peacefully.
• The city would be cleansed of medallion holders.
• All medallions, including those held by taxi companies, would eventually become M medallions.
• M medallions would be leased, not sold, to cab companies.
• The amount of money paid for the leases would be determined at periodic auctions involving only cab companies.

The main purpose of the plan is clearly to gain revenue for the City but there is no real estimate of the total amount that they expect to receive. They do expect to gain:

• $5.5 million a year from a 50/50 split with 300 K retirees.
• $1.73 from Pre K medallions that covert to M medallions.

But the math doesn't work - at least not for the Pre Ks - so I guess I'll do it for them. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) Ultimately, (when all medallions are M medallions) the city expects to be able to earn:

• 1,500 medallions at $3,000 per month =
• $4.5 million per month =
• $54 million a year

No wonder they didn't do the math. City Controller Ben Rosenfeld estimates that the entire taxi industry currently brings in $65 million a year. The plan, in short, is insane.

The retirement option is supposed to be a sop to the medallion holders but $1,500 a month is not enough to retire on in San Francisco.

Newsom also threw a bone to the gate and gas drivers by stating that only non-medallion holders can drive M vehicles. This would indeed mean that more regular drivers would be given good shifts but the long term effect would be to take $2,000 a month away from drivers who would have become medallion holders and give the money to the City.

The plan in reality appears to be one of those Bush-type vehicles where the real intent is to destroy social value. Medallion holders would be wiped out as a class. Power and money would be taken away from both cab drivers and taxi companies and given to the MTA.

However, these figures involved appear to come from Heinicke's fervid late night fantasies.

• Given the small amount of the annuity, medallion holders aren't likely to retire until they are ready to die.
• Jane Bolig, Manager of Desoto Cab, said that her company couldn't afford to pay $3,000 per month and turn a profit. The companies are paying about $2,000 a month for a medallion now. Why would they bid $3,000?
• And, with only five or so companies bidding against each other, you'd could expect them to collude and bid less.

In sum then, the plan would:

• Destroy Prop k.
• Liquidate medallion holders.
• Take money away from both the companies and drivers.
• Destroy San Francisco's pool of professional drivers by eliminating the list.
• Ruin taxi service in the city by lowering the quality of both the drivers and the equipment.

Not surprisingly everybody in the taxi industry stood in unity against the plan including: Jim Gillespie of Yellow Cab, Barry Korengold of the SFCDA, Mark Gruberg of the UTW, Carl Macmurdo of the MHA, Charles Rathbone and Tom Stanghellini of Luxor Cab, several drivers and myself.

Lost in the hubbub was the fact that the taxi industry also spoke in unity against MTA's reorganization plan to drop taxi's from an autonomous division equal to Transit to a subdivision and demote Director Christiane Hayashi.

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.

What is the SFMTA Board Going to do With the List?

A few Board meetings ago Vice Chairman Cheyrl Brinkman (photo) gave a short speech saying that she really cared about doing right by cab drivers. If true, this is an indication that she and other members of the Board didn't fully understand the consequences of the vote they took on Tuesday August 21st to allow Pre-k's to sell (er, surrender) their medallions.

This became evident when the subject of continuing the List came up - after the vote.

Chairman Tom Nolan said that the Board should decide what to do with the Waiting List soon. Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin wanted to clarify the situation so that drivers should know whether or not they should wait to earn a medallion. Director Malcolm Heinicke was quoted in a paper as saying that the List was "the elephant in the room."

If so, Heinicke's been trying to shoot it down for five years. With Tuesday's vote, he succeeded. The pachyderm is laying on it's side gasping for breath. The MTA Board has already decided that few drivers will get their "earned" medallions.

Why? To understand let's look at Director of Taxi Services Chris Hayashi's proposal of May 2012.

Hayashi's Plan ....

called for the 350 Pre-K medallions to go to the Waiting List after the holders either returned them or passed on. It was based on her three year study of the cab industry and several assumptions that came from the knowledge she thereby gained:

1. Few cabs would go to the List once medallions started to be sold. Revocations would be about the only source ... 
2. ... except new issues. Hayashi proposed that 50% of them should go to the List. But, she's also a realist  and knew ...
3. ... that Heinicke wanted to Bogart the medallions.
4. Thus, the 350 Pre-K's would be the only major supplier to the List.

Another set of calculations and assumptions also came into play.

1. At a certain point it would be just as advantageous to buy a medallion as it would to wait.
2. Exactly when - would depend upon the age of the drivers and the length of time that they had been on the List.
3. For instance, I put myself on the list at 48 and got my medallion at 62.
1. If I had bought a medallion at 48, I figure that I would have been just as well off as I was from "earning" it 14 years later.
1. This is calculated for $250,000 and buying the medallion.
2. Paying for a "transfer" at $300,000 might be a whole different kettle of fish. I'd need some legal guarantees that I wouldn't be shafted before I'd sign up for this.
4. There are huge advantages to holding a medallion.
1. It's worth $10,000 to $20,000 a year in better shifts which helps balance out the loan payments.
2. You have job security.
1. Before I had my medallion John Lazar fired me for saying something he didn't like.
2. After I earned my medallion I said something that Lazar didn't like then fired him.
3. You can actually afford medical insurance.

Drivers in their 50's, 60's and 70's would be severally penalized if forced to purchase the medallions - especially after already waiting for 15 or 20 years. In most cases it would make no sense at all.

This would leave these people would have no "exit strategy" and cause them to keep driving until they dropped. Few would have been able to save any money on a $25,000 a year job. Many would die (No exaggeration or rhetorical flourish intended - just a fact.) in poverty.

Hayashi counted the number of such people at somewhere between 300 and 500 Drivers.

The Pre-K's, on the other hand, have already made around a million off of each medallion and don't have a driving requirement. Each medallion gives them from $3,000 to $4,000 per month for the rest of their lives to retire on.

Therefore, it seemed humane, rational and just to give the Pre-K medallions to the List.

But, it wasn't only a question of humanity that motivated Hayashi's plan. She has an understanding of people that seems to be totally lacking in the rest of the SFMTA. Her ultimate principle has been to serve the cab riding public.

"Happy cab drivers make happy customers," she once told me. "Bitter drivers sends Germans back to Munich telling their friends not to visit."

The only way to get more medallions to the Waiting List would be to convince the SFMTA Board that Hayashi is right.

San Francisco has the best and most knowledgeable cab drivers in the country. People from all over the world know this. It's only the locals who don't. People from all over the world tell me what a pleasure it is to take a cab in San Francisco. The reason that we are so good is that so many of us stuck around to earn the medallions. The drivers on the List helped make this city a prime tourist destination. They deserve to have the promises that were made to them kept.

Of course, the Waiting List is finished one way or other. If the SFMTA wants to attract quality drivers in the future, they will need to end the List with a legacy of justice and fair play.

Chris Hayashi's New Plan

Deputy Director of Taxis Chris Hayashi had an epiphany the other night which led to a change of emphasis during the October 16th Town Hall meeting. Originally she had intended to discuss two separate plans: one offering medallions holders a chance to buy a retirement and the other offering the chance sell a medallion at a fixed rate.

Ms Hayashi's revelation was that the two ideas could be combined into one. She only saw the broad strokes in her vision so the details have yet to be worked out. However, the outline goes something like this:

• Medallion holders could opt for either retirement or sale.
• The List would be maintained and drivers on it apparently would have a choice between getting the medallion by paying for it or not.
• The City would take fees of at least $10 million for brokering the deal because they are giving us public access to the streets ... or something.
• Some of these fees would go back to the taxi industry in the form of enforcement against illegal taxis and limos as well benefits for the non-medallion drivers.

It's hard to see how some of this would work but the genius is always in the details and we won't begin to see those until Monday.

I think the idea was generally greeted with enthusiasm - especially by those of us who thought that the twain could never meet between the plans; and that the people favoring one side or the other could never reach an agreement.

There was hostility loudly expressed against the high percentage of the fees (ranging from 20% to 50%) that the MTA wants to charge the taxi industry for putting Deputy Director Hayashi's plan (or any other plan) into effect, mostly by medallion holder Jim Templeton and myself. Jim argued that it was absurd for us to be contributing to the salaries of MTA personnel who make more than twice as much money as we do. I concentrated my attack on the fact that we would be hit by much higher taxes than anyone else pays.

I'm afraid that we both of got a little carried away. Jim had the good grace to apologize for his outburst but I did not. I should have. My Irish temper had the best of me. My animosity was (or should have been) directed at the idea not the person. Let me apologize now.

In any case, our complaints had no effect. Ms Hayashi told us that we should talk to an attorney. Her legal opinion is that the MTA has the right impose any fees that they wish.

She saved the best news for last. She told us that the plan that wouldn't die is finally dead.

"I tried to get one of you to say something good about the plan but couldn't," she told us.

She deflected all attempts to get details about this radical change of direction with a series of impish "yes" and "no" answers to all queries on the subject. In the shadowy Byzantine world of the MTA, the force apparently is finally with Deputy Director Hayashi.

The people in the taxi industry are apparently to be given the chance to decide their own destinies.

Let's hope the wind stays at her back.

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.

Open Letter to Tim Redman

Mr. Redman,

It's discouraging to spend 6 months helping to create a Taxicab Reform proposal only to see it totally distorted by the press. It was nice of you to provide a link to the proposal. It would've been even nicer if you'd bothered to read it carefully.

In short, this is as bad a piece of journalism as I've seen. What's wrong with it? Let me count the ways:

1. The proposal does NOT, "in essence" or any other way, allow cab medallions to be sold on an open market.

A. At most 300 of the 1500 medallion will be sold ONLY to working drivers on a seniority list.

B. Only medallions belonging to drivers over 70 will be sold as way for them to get out of business with some equity.

C. The other 1200 medallions will be given out without charge to drivers on a seniority list the same way that they are now.

2. This proposal is NOT the mayor's plan. Newsom's plan was to take all the taxi medallions and sell them at an open auctions as you should be fully aware.

. A. Newsom wanted to extort $600 million from the taxi industry.

B. As a compromise, he's accepting $15 million - which, while still extortion, isn't that bad when you consider the size of the mayor's gun.

3. The entire plan, in fact, is a compromise that was put together mostly by working cab drivers like myself but including of course cab companies and the MTA. We spent over 150 hour discussing ways of reforming (or not changing) this business. We listened to over 20 proposals and discussed them all at length.

A. From what I hear the major doesn't like this plan any better than you do.

B. the mayor wants a lot more money then this plan gives him but he's willing to go along with it to avoid a ton of lawsuits and bad publicity.

4. The fixed price sale will probably be closer to $250,000 than $400,000.

A. The whole idea of the Fixed Price is that it should be affordable for a working driver.

B. medallion holder gets paid leasing fees of $2,000 a month. This price will be fixed so that these leasing fees will cover the price of a loan.

C. Once again. This is NOT Newsom's idea, it's MINE.

D. It's compromise between an open auction and continuing a broken system where drivers have to wait over 20 years to get a medallion.

5. The MTA is NOT hoarding medallions. 30 medallions, in fact, have been given out since the MTA took over on March 1, 2009.

A. It would've been nice If you'd bothered to talk about this subject with Deputy Director of Taxis Chris Hayashi instead of listening to unsubstantiated rumors.

6. Not mentioned by you is the fact that this Consensus Plan also includes:

A. A Driver's Fund to give the average driver benefits - something they haven't had for 32 years.

B. Setting up an industry council made up of drivers and the public to monitor and make changes in the plan if necessary.

1. The council will also study ways of improving cab service to the public.

7. The situation that you describe at the end of your piece - with drivers waiting for people to die in order to get a permit - is the situation that exits now.

A. This plan should speed up the process, not continue screw the drivers like they're being screwed now.

Once again, I have to say that it's very discouraging and frustrating to read such a distorted view of a proposal that so many of us working drivers gave up so much time and effort to create.

It makes you wonder? If the press can't even cover taxicabs accurately, what do they get right?

If you really want to know what goes on in this business (humility aside) I suggest you read a little more of my blog.

Ed Healy,

Cab #572

P.S. You comment page on your blog didn't accept this piece because it wouldn't pass your SPAM filter. Is the filter set up to reject negative criticism?

Personal Attacks

It's time for a glance at first principles. 


The foundation of political freedom is freedom of speech. It's been established that, as long as your speech is no threat to other people, you have the right to say anything you want. It can be true or false, brilliant or moronic, insightful or totally beside the point - doesn't matter. You have the right to say it.


More nuanced but underlying this freedom is the principle that, if you disagree with a statement that someone else makes, you still grant him or her the right to say it. Furthermore, if you don't like what someone says, you have the right to attack the idea but not the person who makes it.


A personal attack thus is an attack on a person instead of an idea. Put another way, it's a method of dissing an idea by slandering the person who states it.


There is no necessary connection between an idea and the person who holds it.


Attacking an idea or a product by attacking a person who holds the idea, or makes or sells the product, is logically beside the point.


The idea or the product is either good or not good. The moral qualities or motivations of the people who promotes the ideas or the products are also beside the point.


History, for example, is littered with artists whose personal lives didn't match the quality of their creations. The classic example (from classical music) is Richard Wagner who was anti-semitic, slept with his best friend's wife, cheated people out of money, and may have influenced Hitler in his hatred of the jews. Certainly his music was used for propaganda by the Nazis.


Nonetheless, he composed some of the most beautiful operas ever written and they are performed almost everywhere in the world today - including Israel.


In sum: Wagner - bad, The Flight of the Valkyries - good.


In short: If you don't like something, explain why and forget the rest.


Cab drivers and the culture of freedom.


We cab drivers are famous for being opinionated. The saying is that you can't get two cab drivers to agree on anything. I would go beyond this and say that any time you have two cab drivers in an argument you'll have at least five opinions.


It's one of the joys of being a cab driver. It's something we're proud of. We can be stupid. We can be crazy. We can say what we like about anything we like and nobody cares.


We have the right to speak.


At least we did until about a month ago.


Personal Attacks ... on Me.


To address this subject, I'm going to start with myself and, of all things, Open Taxi Access (OTA). I'm using this as example because it's a subject about which few people are emotional. First, I'll tell you why I like the plan. Then, I'll give you the attack.


I like it because the plan;

• Should virtually eliminate no-goes.
• Will give drivers rides in remotes areas.
• Will get customers cabs in remote areas.
• Should improve the incomes of radio players by about 10% - judging by my use of Cabulous.
• Might keep Malcom Heinicke from flooding the city with taxis thus reducing the value of my medallion.

Now - there are legitimate reasons not to like OTA. Charles Rahbone of Luxor Cab doesn't like plan because he thinks that Cabulous should not be given public funds to compete against Taxi Magic and Luxor. I think his argument is a little off point but it's not a personal attack.

The personal attack came as a comment to my blog. I broke out laughing when I first read it.

"Who are you to defend Open Taxi Access," it began. "Are they paying you off?" This was followed by an attack on my imagined sexual behavior and, of course, an attack on my supposed association with Deputy Director Christiane Hayashi.


The anonymous author of this attack then ended by proclaiming that Cabulous should not be given public funds. Unlike Charles Rathbone, he did not give a reason for this. He simply decreed it.


The reason that I laughed when I read this smear is that the cowardly, anonymous idiot who wrote it clearly does not even understand what OTA is. It's an idea not a company. As such, it can't pay me off.


All the schmuc knows is that I'm for OTA and Hayashi favors it; and that's reason enough for him to launch his slanderous assault.


I'm received about 40 comments like this over the last few weeks. They've all followed the same pattern.

• They attack me instead of arguing against my ideas.
• They argue that I'm being paid for speaking against their ideas - to the extent that they can be said to have actual thoughts.
• They accuse me of participating in sexual activity that they probably would love to imitate but will never get the chance.
• And, of course, I'm accused of guilt by association.
• Almost all these attackers tell me that I have no right to speak.

And, of course, all of them are anonymous - meaning that the attackers are too cowardly to identify themselves. 

Mob Mentality.

I've received a few more anonymous comments/attacks since yesterday.

One was sent to my post, This Week's Town Hall Meetings, and goes:


"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."


I know that this will sound ridiculous - like satire - but I believe that Tariq Mehmood actually wrote this. I have three reasons why:

1. Tariq has written me using his name in the past and the word choice, the sentence structure and the mistakes were similar.
2. His statement, "Murai did not defend her." 
3. Chris Hayashi most certainly was defended by Murai but Murai did so when Tariq wasn't in the room.

What Murai said was that she was ashamed to be a cab driver and that the people attacking Chris were acting like "pigs."

The second "comment" went:

"... I do not know what scare you from Tariq or why you are spending time on accusing him. He is not alone ... This is run by Tariq, Tone Lee, Shawni, John Han, Dean Clark, David, John Hanif, Peter, Bill, and nearly 50 others. Medallion holders and some cab are involved ... so not much can be given her ... she will be walked out one day."

Except for electonic waybills, this literary masterpiece barely mentions the policies that Hayashi is recommending. It's clear that these people are not so much interested in changing her plans as they are in hunting her head.

I have two questions:

1. I've disagreed at times with everyone I know on the above laundry list, why should I suddenly agree with them simply because they've become a mob?
2. If they are so united, if there are so many of them, if they are so great and powerful, what the hell do they care what I say?

And, what I'm saying is that Chris Hayashi does not deserve these attacks. Two years ago she saved this industry and she's devoted the time since trying her best to improve it. If she "be walked out," it would be a disaster for the vast majority of drivers and the City of San Francisco.

In short, Murai had it about right.

Notes Toward A Compromise Plan

Proposition K worked well but has one major weakness.

• The main problem is that of aging drivers who have no exit strategy or retirement.
  

1. The Heidi or UTW solution would be to simply take the medallions away from medallion holders when they become too old to drive. The idea is that they should have saved their money when they had the chance. But, the fact is that most of them won't have saved enough. A certain amount of them would end up poor and homeless.
2. The MHA solution would be to either let medallion holders hang on to the medallion until they die or enable them to sell the medallions at auctions.
3. Allowing the medallion holders to keep their medallions until they die seems unfair to working drivers on the List because it slows the List down. 
4. Putting the medallions up for auction is definitely unfair to the drivers on the list. Few working drivers would be able to save enough money to compete in an open auction and the medallions would end up actually being owned by people like Lazar, Yellow Cab and Tariq as well as loan companies and banks. The actual income of the new owners would be severely reduced and the average driver would have little hope of ever owning a cab.
5. Cab service would also be hurt because the pool of profession drivers on the list would quickly disappear. Any driver who could get into another line of work would.

My compromise would be to sell the medallions at a fixed rate or a Fair Market Value instead of at an auction.

1. The rate would be set high enough to give an incentive for owners to sell but low enough for the drivers on the List to be able to afford to buy it a medallion low interest rates.
2. Drivers on the List would not have to show a high credit rating. In a cash business few drivers build up credit. The fact that the drivers have lived up to the Daly-Ma requirements should be enough to qualify them as good risks.
3. Since the cab companies want to get into the banking business, why not let them? Luxor and the other companies could provide the drivers with low interest loans in exchange for keeping the cab in the respective company's fleet. There would be little risk involved. If the driver defaulted on the loan, the company could simply re-sell the medallion to the next driver on the list.
4. The city would of course take a percentage of the sale - after all that is sole reason why we have our current cab crises. Hopefully, this percentage would be consistent with the 5% transferability rates charged in the rest of the country.
5. Be that as it may, half of whatever rate the city does change should go toward creating benefits for the drivers.

I guess that's it. Everybody gets something: nobody gets a lot. Remember the Golden Mean.

Who is what: Part 2

The ordinary drivers (non-medallion holders) fall into two main groups: those who may or may not be represented by the UTW and the vast majority who lack representation.

The UTW is one of the more bizarre organizations I've ever come across. They claim to represent drivers but they are not a union and appear to have no interest in what the average driver thinks or wants. In the past:

• They talked the city into putting shields into taxis despite the fact that the drivers were overwhelming against such shields.
• After the second largest protest in SF taxi history forced the city to remove the shields, Rua Graffis of the UTW continued and continues to push for their implementation. 
• The UTW has spent the last several years trying to force a medical plan on the city despite a Taxi Detail poll showing that 58% of the drivers were against the plan.
• The UTW talked the Taxi Commission into NOT putting in a meter increase during the boom years of 2004 - 2007 that almost all drivers wanted. The UTW's reasoning? The drivers couldn't have a meter increase unless they had a medical plan ... or something?

The UTW has also fought against or sabotaged all attempts to bring a real drivers union into San Francisco. Currently;

• The UTW is with the regular drivers in wanting to protect Prop. K and not auction off the medallions.
• At the same time, the UTW backs a plan to soak the medallion holders $10,000 a year in order (I guess) to socialize the industry.
• Put another way: the UTW wants the drivers to get their medallions at the same time as they (the UTW) renders those medallion effectively worthless.

The UTW's motto? "Dazed and Confused."

The vast majority of drivers are not represented, period. Their motto is: "Help! I need someone. Help! Just about anyone. Help me! Wooooooo."

Naturally, they fall into two groups: those who are on The List and those who aren't.

The drivers on The List would be devastated by an auction and, the closer they are to the top, the harder they would be hit.

Drivers not on The List or toward the bottom of it might see an advantage in getting backing from the Lazars and Tariqs in order to compete in an auction. The younger the driver, the more worthwhile even a high interest loan might be.

There is some cross-over among the groups that I've mentioned during the last two posts. 

• The SFCDA and the drivers on The List have a natural bond and they both would go along with the UTW in opposing changes in Prop K.  
• On the other hand, neither the drivers on The List nor the SFCDA would go along with the UTW's plan to soak the medallion holders.
• However, the SFCDA wants to end the driving requirement so they can retire someday while the The List drivers want the medallions holders to either give up the medallions the instant they stop working or die soon.
• The MHA and the SFCCA would agree on some issues and not on others.
• The MHA and the companies would agree on some issues and not on others.
• etc, etc, etc

All the drivers and the companies agree on one thing: they do not want to be eaten by Newsom.

But they have an ancient motto working against them: "Divide and Conquer."

Being already so divided, how do we keep the Sun King from gobbling us up?

May I propose a new motto? "Come together - right now!"