A Reward for Playing by the Rules?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The City vs the Cab Drivers: Now!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe this should be re-named Medallion Deform.

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

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

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

MedallionReformCalendarItemfor08212012_000(1).pdf 24K   View   Download

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

TAC 9-27: Gate and Gas vs Long Term Lease

The main topics of the latest TAC were Gate and Gas (GG) vs Long Term Lease (LTL) and the Driver's Fund. Both subjects were discussed at length and in depth so I'll deal with them in separate posts.

First, I want to apologize in advance for any omissions or errors. I recorded the proceedings and slacked on my note keeping. When I listened to the tape, however, the only people I could understand were myself and Carl Macmurdo, who sat next to me. This article, in other words, will be even more a stream of consciousness than usual.

                                   Random Stuff

San Francisco, the third most expensive city in the country, has the 10th highest taxi fares.

Some Pilot Program Stats:

• 18 medallions are being issued to people on the list.
• 1 SFMTA held medallion has been transferred (i.e. sold) to a buyer.
• 19 medallion holder medallions are in the process of being transferred.
• 9 Pre-K medallion holders have died during that last year.
• 3 Pre-K medallions have been sold.

Quote of the week,

"Cab drivers are all schemers and frauds ... and need to be watched." Bill Mounsey  (photo, above) on the drivers ahead of him on the Waiting List.

Leasing vs Leasing 

The above title is my way of noting that no other system  (like a split of the meter) is in play. 90% of the county may work on some form of employer-employee relationship but we in the cab business prefer to stay in the same league as strippers, office temps and call girls.

The Name Game.

The initial discussion centered around tying to decide what to call the new owners who chose to work their cabs as an LTL. Some people wanted to call the relationship an "affiliate" because the new owners would usually be affiliated with a color scheme but I think Rebecca Lytle of the San Francisco Federal Credit Union carried the day by calling them "Owner Operated" leases (OOLs.)

The Owner Operated Lease.

It's basically the same as an LTL, except the owners don't lease it from a company. They buy their own cars and chose their own drivers. If they associate with a company, they pay for the radio and the color scheme.

There are significant differences in the way the contracts are written because the credit unions demand certain information from the owners (I'll cover this later in an interview with Rebecca Lytle) but the taxis themselves are worked much like an LTL.

The Leasing Debate.

There are strong feelings on both sides of the GG vs LTL issue.

Cons
Green Cab manager and councilor Anthan Rebelos said that he had "about five pages" of things he didn't like about the LTL. Councilor and driver John Han, Mark Gruberg of the UTW and myself also spoke strongly against the practice. Putting our ideas together, you could come up with the following partial list:

• Hundreds of experienced drivers have lost their shifts or their jobs.
• They've been replaced by drivers with less knowledge
• LTL drivers are less likely to take radio calls.
• LTL taxis hurt service in the neighborhoods.
• LTL cabs are frequently subleased to brokers.
• These brokers are charging desperate people illegal amounts of money to drive shifts.
• This brings a criminal element into the industry and, as such, creates situations of potential violence.
• This is almost impossible for the MTA to police.
• The companies themselves often don't know who's driving their cabs.
• This increases the potential for catastrophic insurance losses; and 
• Endangers the public.

Pros

• Jim Gillespie of Yellow Cab says that LTL drivers are as likely to take radio calls as anyone else.
• In the past, he's also claimed that LTL drivers get into fewer accidents.
• A man whose name I didn't get (photo, right) said that he'd been driving for 34 years and had been given junk taxis under the GG system.  He now works under an LTL  and loves it because he's got a brand new cab and makes a lot more money.
• Driver Ton Lee, who represents Asian drivers at the airport, said that LTL drivers work hard just like everybody else and deserve consideration.

The Devil Made Him Do It.

John Lazar of Luxor Cab said that he resisted LTLs until 2004 when he "lost 24 GG medallions."

This echoed Jane Bolig of Desoto Cab who said, "medallion holders are diving the system" by setting up bidding wars between companies (Hmm - guilty). She also said that "insane" liability insurance rates were forcing companies to change the way they do business.

"Force" is a big word with Lazar who claimed that new buyers were "forced" to go OOL because of the high cost of their loans. At an earlier meeting, he had said that a buyer making $2,300 a month couldn't cover $2,700 a month loan. This time he asked Rebecca Lytle to confirm his theory.

Ms Lytle, however, did nothing of the kind, saying that their cheapest monthly rate was $1,446 per month for a 25 year balloon loan. She later told me that the rates for the other loans that she had underwritten were:

• $1,798 for 15 year balloon loan.
• $2,304 for a 12 year fixed rate loan.

Not Forced - Wanted.

Nonetheless, all but a few of the new buyers have chosen to become Owner Operators. This is something that few people at the Town Hall meetings anticipated and it changes the dynamic of the sales. All the calculations that were done to come up with the $250,000 fixed rate were based on a GG system.

Once upon a time, Director Chris Hayashi told me that she wanted to end LTLs. Even if she still wanted to do this, it would take three years to phase them out because of the money the drivers have spent on cars. And, what about the new OOLS?

There could be a lot more said about this subject ... and there will be.