this is next step in making taxi service for reelaborate or a next step in making taxi service more reliable and i think those companies that have gone through the efforts to sort of implement these apps should be rewarded. the cab driver who is new to us here, but whose comments were very much appreciated talking about the no-goes that he encountered. i would suggest that. have some sort of system whereby in exchange for them putting money down unbeing punished if they no-go, they are more likely to know they are being picked up.

i would hope we would work with our taxi companies to enable them to do that, if they choose to do so. on the pricing of these, you have a sort of suggested rate of $1900 per month. we're not actually locking that in here, is the price to be determined or this proposal locked it in at $1900 per month? >> i would have to look at the language in the resolution. we were setting that as a baseline, based on what we currently -- to be consistent with our current charges. >> okay. and i know we went with a set fee for the individual sales for reasons of protection of the buyer, for reasons of certainty and frankly for reasons of financing is what the credit union was going to finance. was there any consideration given to whether it would make more sense giving these to corporations, sophisticated eptities to use an auction system as a fixed price?

>> that is not something that we considered. we thought was simplest and more straightforward was using our current fee structure to price these permits. that is again, something we could look at. >> okay. and you have spoken to the data that you have that suggests there is more -- there is a need to do -- there is an unmet need for cabs. i won't say "consensus", but a majority of data points and opinions that at least in the peak time s there is unmet needs. have we had communication from the consultant? do we have any advance suggestions from him about the unmet needs or are we really in the dark as far as what his conclusions will be? >> largely in the dark at this time. he has not issued any

preliminary report or preliminary findings, so there is no draft report that hasn't been shared. i have not seen anything. i did call him, when i was first contemplating this, just to in part let him know, but also to kind of get -- see if i could get any sense of where he was. and since he hadn't finished his work, he wasn't really willing to commit anything specifically. though i interpreted that he was finding -- he was affirming what many speakers spoke to as there being a deficiency in the number of the tachi cabs. he wasn't committing to or talking about any numbers, but i got confidence from that conversation that that will be a finding. >> sure. and as i have said, since i have been struggling with these issues, the single biggest complaint and really in many

ways the only complaint we ever get about our taxi system, bewy as directors and me in my position, you can't get a cab when you need one. i think that is focused on peak times, but i think there is definitely a sense in the public there is an unmet demand throughout the time. i want to thank the folks from the business communities who have come to speak to that today. we appreciate them taking their time. chairman nolan, let me ask one other question. it's 150 to 200. i take it as you work through the issues you will figure out the precise number, which may depend on the allocation to companies and what numbers work. what is the thought process to determine between 150 and 200? >> that was a range we were suggesting. it's possible based on how we choose to allocate them, that not all companis will be interested. there are timing issues and this gives us a little

flexibility in terms of how these roll out, to stop it at 150 or go to 200. so it was really meant to give some nexibility for flexibility for things that we don't know at this time. >> it will come as no surprise that i support this proposal. that suggested to me it was a longer time commit and would be harder to trench. so to me this is a shorter term, temporary test. i'm not convinced this is the solution. i think the solution may rely in the form of peak -time permitting or combination of

full-time madions and peak-time permitting. i think this proposal is short enough on a temporal scope to turn back if it's not the right path and continue with it if it's the right panel. i think it gives us the opportunity to reward good dispatch services and good color schemes. it will promote the gas and gate arrangement, which we know is generally more beneficial to the driver and avoids the whole abuses that were seen in the brokering of medallions. i think it will address in part, i realize there is enforcement needed, but it will address in part of the issue of why these others and in some instances unlicensed and illegal systems are work. there is a demand out there and it's not being met. so again, i think this is sort of wise in a small-scale way to see if this is the appropriate way to

address the need that is out there and see if we need to revisit it during the program or at least within the three years after the leases are up. >> directors? director ramos? director lee? >> i think for me this has been probably one of the most complicated areas of policy that we have to work in, especially for me. i think that the parking stuff as it has always been tough to deal with and this is even starting to bleed into parking now with the problem that we're having with some of the uber cabs and town cars parking in places that we have residents who want to park their cars. however, to me, one thing is clear, when the market sees a niche, it starts to take advantage of it and that is why i think we're seeing the proliferation of the town cars and pink moustaches. i saw one this weekend and thought if there is not a need there, then why are they here?

so i second the comments made by director brinkman and director heinicke and appreciate all the hard work that has gone into this so far. i do recognize this is not a permanent solution. i realize a lot of tweaking has to happen between now and putting this to bed, if we'll ever be able to do that, but i do believe we have an obligation to provide a service to the people that we're -- people that live, work and visit here. when i make a phone call to take a cab and told it's 45 minutes to get one, i can pretty much work anywhere in 45 minutes in this city. the other thing that i do want to really second director heinicke's comments with respect to uber cab's success or uber's success is this idea of putting up a fee upfront to make sure there is no-no-go, because i know for folks that don't have a hand in how this

industry works out, what people will often do is call three cab companies and take the first one that picks up. that is a sad reality when people need to get someplace quickly, 45 minutes unfortunately is not acceptable. so looking forward to moving this policy along and adjusting it as goes along and thank everyone for their comments. director lee? >> anything that i have to say really repeats what the other directors have said, but my concern becomes we took a look at market share and how much market share the taxi industry is losing from the outside vendors coming in. my job requires that i travel a lot and i'm mandated to take taxis from washington to portland to boston, the cab service is pretty good. i have tried to take cabs here. it's really difficult, but when we say there is not enough business. what is making uber

flourish so well? there has got to be a niche that we're not taking advantage of that we have to do and regain that market share. so part of that is not only looking at the needs of your drivers, but looking at the needs of the customers out there who said, hey, look, if i can't get a cab, i'll go the next best route and that is what they are doing now. he think we need to take this test and run with it. >> thank you. is there a motion on the item? >> i will move to approve. >> is there a second? i will second. before we vote, i would like to say a couple of things. i will support this, but two things that are important to me. one, if this study comes back in january or in february, whenever it comes back and is radically different in its conclusion about the need than what we're basing this on, we're dealing with an awful lot

of anecdotal data here. washington, d.c., it's a very different kind of city and why people are there and the taxi thing, i think is very different there than it is here. that is one thing. the second thing is that it's extremely important to me, the case has been made very, very well here about the list. and i think to my mind and i can't tell you exactly what this means specifically, but it's got to pass some level of test of fairness for the drivers. and especially for the drivers who are been on this issue for many, many years. on your assurance this is coming back to us sometime fairly soon and also, we haven't talked about the drivers' fund yet either. that is another major area of which this body could be helpful in some fashion to the drivers. and i want to see both of these things, as thoughtfully and quickly as we can, allowing for enough time for town high

school meets and the like. all in favor? >> aye. >> nays in the the r the ayes have it. we'll take a 10-minute break.

>> ready? >> yes. >> ladies and gentlemen, we'll return to the agenda. the consent calendar now, aren't we? >> we're on public comment. >> okay. we have members of public who wish to speaker? >> directors, [ reading speakers' names ] >> mr. rathman. >> good afternoon again, directors. i wanted to let you know that over the weekend, luxor cab received a complaint about dangerous driving. the caller identified the offending cab as luxor no. 5 02.

in recent months we have had a number of complaints about no. 502, however, there is no luxor 502. at least not a legal licensed luxor cab. we believe that no. 502 is one of a number of fake luxor cabs that are out there. we have seen some of them. we're extremely concerned about this. it goes well beyond just stealing our business or affecting our band image. what is going to happen when one of these things runs over people or something and the witnesss are all standing there saying yep, it was a luxor cab and it may have well been no. 502. so we urge you onto greater efforts to crackdown on the pure outragous bandit cabs that masquerade as licensed cabs. thank you. >> thank you.

next speaker. >> barry toronto. >> good afternoon, chairman nolan. you want to tell me to do what? you have already done that to me. it's too late. i didn't like it. anyway, somebody else did that, at the republican national convention. i did it to show a point. it represent twos things. one, the lack of including us in the public process. the chair is empty because you do things no matter what we say and how much input we give to you, although chairman nolan did show some sensitivity today. the other one is -- anyway, the thing is that i am very disturbed how you include us. you have seen reports and correspondence today that we

don't have access to. apparently i was told it was in the file at the office. if you get them on the day of the meeting we don't have %back always have access to it. we ask you to bring those documents to share with us. if you want, i will keep roberta boom irtied up at sunshine task force meetings for years unless you include us in the process more. i'm going to be sun shining all of the documents. i want to see emails from all of you from now on, because i'm tired of only seeing miss brinkman, tom nolan and mr. heinicke as the om ones participating in what creates taxi issues. i have seen nothing yet from what you guys have done or participated in. you need to come to town hall meets and need more input and honest debate and honest discourse what is going on. in closing, an email from tom nolan, many of the tax

recommendaces were incorporated into the staff recommendations over the past few years. few years the taxes only existed two years. less than two years. i know that some may feel that the work was i ignored. please know that the board and staff appreciated and benefited by the work. thank you, mr. paul ryan. thank you. >> next speaker. [ reading speakers' names ]. >> mr. lawrence. >> ladies and gentlemen of audience and commissioners, thank you for letting me speak once again. very briefly, i would like to bring up an issue that i think one of the -- i'm not sure which one of you brought it up. but anyway, the issue of sharing a cab, like in washington, d.c.. i picked up a man from washington, d.c. last week and he said since january they recognized the gridlock problem and instituted one extra dollar

per passenger and one extra dollar per bag. washington, d.c. has recognized the problem with taking one cab per passenger, because that is what they do at ffo. there is a shortage of cabs at peak time, because every one person getting in one cab. they share cabs. you have three passengers plus the main guy is $4, on top of the gate which is $3.50 and five bags, $5 more in the trunk that. should be instituted in san francisco as well. it will solve a big problem with peak -time cabs. i recall the 500 cabs put on the streets in 1999, during the so-called dot com bubble. my income dropped 65% and never came back. during 2003, during the recession, it dropped again and never came back. ed for for the city to compensate for the income of

taxi drivers you have to raise the meter five times and every time a cab company sits in the background and says we want to raise the gates too. you have to raise the meter and no taxi cab driver in this city has any benefits whatsoever with that raise of the gate. and i think looking at that in a long-term position would help the problem with gridlock, the shortage of cabs, by making it almost mandatory, two people going to the same destination should share a cab. it's also cheaper for them. thank you for your time. >> thank you, sir. >> hanso kim. eric williams. >> good afternoon directors. i want to talk about a few different topics in public comment. the first i want to reinforce something i mentioned in the past. one of our problems that we have with service we're not maximizing the efficiency of the existing number of medallions now in servi.