i have seen the report and it is dated may 11. pcnm, you want to do that after you issue camps. i would also like to see a comptroller's report from 2006 and 2007 who said we need a major increase. there are none. if you go to archives, you cannot find the comptroller's report and it cannot find a report that was made in 2007 that issued more cabs. there is reason why they should more cabs. where are the customer complaints? i would like to see the customer complaints. where is the data? are you falling asleep on the switch of dispatch? taxi peak times. we need morning rush-hour. summer tourist taxis.

every city has the same problem. you think you are special, don't you? i am astonished that he did not know the meter could be adjusted by the time. rush-hour, the meter goes up and discourages or encourages cab pulling which is another idea that could be implemented and it could double or triple the fleet without adding one more taxing. efficiency is what i would like to see. that comes green and you do it efficiently and do not waste taxpayers' time and money. in a capitalistic society, that is the way you go. [bell] >> next speaker, please. [reading names] >> good afternoon, directors. i want to acknowledge my id

manar -- admiration, there is a small time in china where the cab drivers went on strike. that takes a lot of courage in china with their society. as far as peak time medallions, this is an opportunity for the city. the city gets involved in businesses because it needs to regulate them. this is a golden opportunity to start employing cabdrivers in a test program where i worked at a company where we split the meter and we were given minimum wage. you can take all the personal information and data information because you are implying the cabdrivers and you can treat them that way. the way it works is you pay minimum wage and the harder they work, the more money they make because they split the meter 60-

40 or whatever way is fair. members of the teamsters, there will be collective bargaining and you will have 40 cabs that you will be able to work some of your experiments on. i feel like a lab rat in many cases. every day, there's something new coming in and we have to figure out what it is and how it will affect us. i have been driving a long time. there has never been enough cabs to satisfy everybody. thank you. >> next speaker, please. [reading names] >> good afternoon. i am richard wiener, i have been in the business over 40 years and i sat in the room like this as a taxicab commissioner. i have a little bit of experience. i am here to speak strongly against the issue of prime

time, peak time, a single operator medallions and speak strongly in favor of full time taxis. we need full-time taxis on the street. i do not know how many people have spoken from the public but if this meeting is like any other, it is medallion holders, drivers, not much from the public. the purpose of the taxicabs is to serve the public. just to give you a quick figures. non-prime time days at yellow cab, sunday and saturday between 6:00 a.m. and noon. we cannot fill 100 calls each day. on monday and tuesday night, the slowest knights of the week, we cannot -- slowest knights of the wenights of the week. over a week, we cannot fill 9000 calls. people who want us, we cannot get the maccallum.

i humbly say we need at least 300 more cabs on the street, full-time, let the system operates the way it has been which is to have full-time cabs on the street. thank you. >> next speakers, the last who have turned in a speaker car. >> thank you. i am a driver with yellow cab. i am also the person who has since 2009 pushed for the single operator medallion. i want you to keep in mind today that company representatives who are trying to oppose this single operator medallion, this is a question of whether you have company controlled medallions against driver control and driver owned medallions. that is what is being debated here. the cab companies have to have full-time medallions because

they are vehicle leasing firms and that is not necessarily the same thing as addressing the issue of transportation service. taxi drivers are considered to be self-employed business owners and because they are, they have to be given the opportunity to have some degree of ownership in the business. that is what the single operator taxicab is. i strongly recommend you please to go forward with a single operator taxi medallion. my recommendation is to go forward with a three-year lease plan and at the end, give drivers the option to own to purchase the medallion. that is one way to deal with this. as far as rote -- company representatives say they cannot meet service demands, that is what we need single operator taxicab medallions. as far as them not being viable, they are. the plan that is being proposed today is uniquely san

franciscan. it is not the toronto embassador cab that people are talking about. this is offering taxi drivers the opportunity to share a single taxicab. my time is up. thank you. >> thank you. our last speaker. >> good afternoon. let me say that i strongly support the meter increase. i wish it was more modest as i think our rates are already high. an increase would have been there. regardless, i do believe the increased needs to be passed into something that is overdue and will increase revenue significantly. if our rates get too high, we will writ -- lose ridership and our rates are already high. i want to raise great concern about the plan that is being put

forward. i like the idea of experimenting, trying single user medallions. this is something that is being overlooked. what has been great about san francisco's taxi system is we have issued the medallions whether it is for free on the list are being sold to taxi drivers. this plan is a fundamental change i have never seen before. which is the city becomes a landlord to the medallions and rents them directly to drivers. i think we have to be cautious about the new plan that has the city have all the benefits and all the liabilities are put on the private industry. i am open to single user medallions and other ideas but this plan is not ready for prime time and i will tell you from a business perspective, you are putting enormous financial burdens on drivers on this plan where they can only made by their driving. they have to buy the vehicle, by the services, all within the income they get from driving

without a cushion for leasing. before you go forward, this has to be looked at seriously and has to be more developed before you go with a plan like this. i want to raise that concern. this needs to be continued and looked at before you implement. thank you. >> thank you. our next speakers. >> good afternoon. i am paul harding, a retired medallion holder. thank you, pilot program. i have no axe to grind. no tools for that kind of stuff. for one thing i am sure. the director has done a phenomenal, great job of bringing together the various acrimonious factors -- factions of our taxi industry.

she works hard to make things fair and that is important. i thank you for your service to the city we all love. i am here to support the fare increase. i am conflicted about the various issues in item 12. i am not being paid for this endorsement. i thank you for your service. bravo. >> our next speakers. >> i am with a san francisco cab drivers association. i want to support the meter increase that has been proposed and i expect that you will accept that. i am against the 10 medallions

that are being sold directly by the mta. i do not think the mta should be in the business of selling them outright. it is one thing to sell to other drivers. there is a rationale for that and giving an exit strategy but there is a conflict of interest when the mta start selling the medallions and getting revenue and the question becomes, do we need the cabs or do you need revenue? we did discuss a single operator permit, we voted on it. i do not know why jim gillespie said we did not. i do not agree with the mta renting them out as a pilot program. i like the incentive idea that if you take enough radio calls there would be no charge for it. and possibly explore what was suggested about the medallion holders being able to purchase the medallions or obtain them.

i think they should be earned. i do not think they should have to be bought by people who spent their career driving a cab and putting up with what all that takes. as far as yellow cab not supporting this, i worked for yellow cab 20 years. i started there and we were on radio and there was no service problems. since they went to a computer, no one has been able to get a cab. i believe yellow cab is doing a concerted effort to make it appear as though we need more cabs and there is a shortage and their dispatches a highly flawed. i have moved to another company that is ready a dispatched and people are served. -- a radio dispatc radio dispate are served. >> our next speaker. >> good afternoon. >> these -- i am speaking about

the single user permits. dr. fulkerson had call them designer medallions. that is an appropriate description. the people that the director has chosen to receive these are a little old. they are my age. the senior drivers. in the industry they already have the best shifts and to impose this kind of -- this is getting too hard for them to put the effort into micromanaging the permit and buying the car and too many hours. they are beyond the age where i think that people can do that. if you are well intentioned, why don't you just give those medallions to people? instead of -- are you more concerned about getting income for the mta, or are you

concerned about providing service to the city? they tried this in toronto, it did not work. if you do the numbers it is not financially feasible. maybe for some young guy but not for an older person. i urge you to continue before you implement it to and look at it. i am sure you are pleased to lease the medallions. do you want to go there again? do you want to impose a hardship on working people and their families. you were there during that discussion and i do not think you want to bring that subject up again. once again, i urge you to look at this closely. -- it will ne economically feasible for the people. they are not going to be able to do it and it will be a failure.

>> >> good evening, directors. the company -- we went to other places and convinced them to kill it. we wanted to see what you can do better. after we got to the medallion holders and companies, they are the only ones who are opposing the signature for medallions. they're not making money out of it and they want to continue their kingdom of corruption. they're ready a system is down to zero and they are telling you a different story.

i can sit with you one hour and explained their radio system is garbage. give me -- they are lying to you continuously. i proved to them last week. i have wrong calls on the on not able to stand with me. coming to this, they are -- i do requests some changes in the sand that is what, get them out of the company's hands, i request to you, i gave you the paper. what time to what time, [unintelligible] this is the future of san francisco. you are seeing it. this is the future of this industry and the public will be [unintelligible] we have hundreds of thousands of

dollars each year and please approve this today. thank you. >> the public -- this will be the last speaker. anyone else want to identify themselves, this is your chance. good afternoon. >> good afternoon. i believe the answer is centralized dispatching. if any new medallions are issued, they should be [unintelligible] otherwise there will be chaos in the cab industry. directors, are we forgetting about the medallion reading list that already exists? you have slowed down the process to receive a medallion.

it should be issued to the drivers on the waiting list. the way sfmta is running things, -- for more than 12.5 years will never get a medallion. please do not do this to drivers like me. directors, since you're not going to reduce the feet, please go ahead with the meter increase. directors, you are giving the meter increase in the hands and taking it away from the other hand. i will tell you why. you are adding more cabs and we are already paying high fees and gas prices.

-- [unintelligible] you are letting the cab drivers with no choice. i urge you to increase the flag drop. thank you. >> thank you. thank you to all who participated in the various town hall meetings and thank you for the summer. i thought that was useful to hear the wide variety of comments. all those who participated were members of our advisory committee. i want to thank you here. there were useful and thoughtful comments and suggestions. one that is worth looking at is some form of indexing the fares going forward so we do not have

to wait 10 years to do this. that is way too long to come in my opinion. i would like to ask ms. friedlander to address the issue that was raised in the environmental report. could you speak to that? >> we have reviewed the letter and while it is correct there was an error in the calendar and we cannot see any obstacle to moving forward. >> no accident why we're here. we have been in this industry and a lot of you have been involved blogger then we have. the problem is always the same. now the microphone is on. you may change your mind whether you want to hear me. if you raise your hands we will keep the microphone on.

the reason for proposal 12 is, as we all know, the single biggest problem in the minds of the public in san francisco regarding taxi service and the single biggest problem regarding taxi service in san francisco is not the quality of our drivers. a special thank you for a driver from luxor who helped solve a crime the other night. it is a situation where folks feel they cannot get a cab when they need them. they cannot rely on the service and this is a cute on fridays and saturdays when our citizens and visitors should be about enjoying the city and spending money. we have the first and probably a series of many steps to address this. we will add some full-time thompson and for the first time, since i have been involved, i

and others who have been pushing forward which is aimed more surgical approach to get cabs on the streets when they are needed. the single operator permit idea is a peak time idea. the reason we're approaching it as a pilot program is to see it if it works. if it does not we will retracted. if it does it is fair to and for this single operators will drive during peak times putting more cabs out on the street when they are needed and avoiding putting out more cabs on the street when they are not needed. i would like to thank the people who have worked hard to get this year. there are many people on the mta staff but most importantly is assistant director hayashi. i compliment her on putting this together. the taxi advisory committee have worked out -- worked hard.

i will single out one member of the public, john han. i thank him personally. as i state my support, i want to be clear with everyone. this is not the last stop on addressing the availability of taxicab service in san francisco. this is what i view as the first of many steps. we will review this pilot and see how it goes. we are issuing an rfp to see if there is a greater demand for full-time cabs. if there is not, we will get that information. i do believe as i have spoken about extensively, we should explore open taxi access and ask the advisory committee to look at that issue and see if that could benefit service in san

francisco. once we have the results and the -- of the study and ways to address dispatch and service issues directly, open taxi access or otherwise, we can take additional steps as needed. i would favor this proposal with thanks to the staff with the understanding this is the first step to address the biggest issue facing the taxicab industry. it will come as no surprise that i am happy to see this coupled with a significant service increase but i hear the concerns on timing and president nolan, i would support an indexing proposal for this. we have switched to that with parking meters and other things. it is the sort of mechanized way to review these sorts of things to make sure they are happening for good economic reasons and not political reasons. we have heard from some of the

speakers that it is time to review and figure out what we will do with the medallion sales pilot. i know the director feels that way. i think today is a step forward. i want to thank those who have participated in it for their help and i want to let everyone know this is not the last step. >> thank you. >> let me start off by saying i agree with everything that director heinicke said. the meter increase is high time we did this. i am not ready to support item 12. i think we heard many people today who are not sure this is a good idea.

i have also over the last three weeks durso -- or so don hundreds of telephone calls from people who have been concerned about this single operator medallion. i asked, there -- several people told me this does not work in other cities. i went about calling several municipalities that had these things going. it is true, it has not worked in other places that have tried this. i do not want us to rush into something that i do not believe

we are ready to do. i would like of weed -- if we do not continue item 12, i will not support it. >> what we will do is split items 11 and 12t in separate votes. >> i want to sincerely express my gratitude to all of you who have shown up and spoken so eloquently on this issue. policymaking like this is never going to be perfect. it will never make everyone happy. the director has -- what the director has been able to do and staff is put to something -- put together something that will appeal to as many people as

possible knowing we will not make everyone happy. a lot of you have come up here and spoken and this has been my first real issue that has been challenging i have had to deal with. i cannot express enough to you it has been helpful. i want to mention appreciating the way that ms. marai came up, and spoke. the way you spoke helps us move the conversation forward. we have to be looking at each other like we have the best faith in mind. we have to do what is best for our city. we have to give each other that much credit and recognize we're never going to find something that will make everyone happy and we hope to be able to offer solutions that will cover everyone -- multiple different

perspectives. this proposal that has come out speaking about item 12 is a step in that direction. we're not saying it is a solution. if we put 500 cabs out we might end up with 500 cabs at the airport. there is a lot we need to work on and figure this out much more effectively and i appreciate the hard work that has gone into this. i am looking forward to supporting this item. >> we will do this separately. let's do item 11 first. is there a motion? is there a second? any further discussion? the ayes have it, so ordered. is there a second to 12? commissioner ramos: second.