we received time and time again from meeting planners and convention planners and these are the folks that bring the people to san francisco and make those decisions are that there is not enough taxi service in the city. in fact, i have received a recent letter from one of our biggest convention planners asking what is the city doing about this? by adding 150 to 200 new medallions, you will be taking a great step forward in trying to meet the demand of this traveling segment that brings so much to the economic vitality of the city. so with that, san francisco travel association encourages your support of the matter before you now. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> barry toronto, jim gillespie, phillip ward. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon chairman nolan. i am disappointed you are only giving us two minutes considering this proposal hasn't been properly vetted by

the taxi industry. i don't know when this appeared in a town hall meeting to give you a proper recommendation on this. also the issue as you in effect will become the medallion holder you are basically making cab drivers employees of anings that is regulating the industry as well. there is somewhat of a conflict of interest there. as some of you are lawyers and have legal background should be concerned about that. if you get sued, due to improper workers' compensation, who is providing the workers' compensation? it should be the medallion holder, which is you. you are the medallion holder, not the company. you are leasing it to somebody else to run the medallion.

also, in the $3 million, $4 million you will get per year, there is nothing included about how many employees you will add to monitor the program. you have to make sure you have a couple of employees to mount vernon monitor the program. also you need to alert the public about how many medallions are going where. it's not very well explained in and i think at the end of the 3-year period these drivers could lose their jobs. who is going to play for the unemployment insurance? the concern is that it would be better to actually put out 40 to 50 new medallions. you know there is an ebb and flow in the business.

thank you. >> thank you. next speaker? >> jim gill [kwr-eups/]ie, gillespie. phillipward. >> jim gillespie with yellow cab. i'm here to support the staff report and for about reason. there is a large unmet demand as all of you know for taxi cabs. even though yellow cab, luxor cab and desoto cab service 90% of all the calls that come in for taxi service, we also pick up 95% of the paratransit. there is another 30% of calls that come in that are never answered. and people finally hang up, because they can't get through. and it all gets back to this shortage of taxis and this

demand. the gas and gate model we support for several reasons. obviously we have better control. so in turn provide better service and it will provide more jobs. we have to -- for every cab put on the streets, you have got to put at least four drivers into service to service that cab. so it's going to be a good opportunity for more people to work. while at the same time, providing this good service to the city. so again, we're very supportive of this. it's been a long time coming. a lot of studies that we know being done. there was a study that we recently put together and actually been put together by a former city attorney phil ward, who i think is going to address you next and tell you about the study that we provided each of you a copy. thank you. >> thank you, mr. gillespie. next speaker, please. phil ward, john loewsar, kevin carroll. >> good afternoon, mr. ward.

>> good afternoon, my name is philip ward. i'm an attorney for yellow cab and luxor cab and have been involved as an attorney and advisory since 1989. in the report that supports this particular item, staff reached the conclusion based on various data that there was a significant unmet demand for taxi cab services in san francisco that cannot be met by the current size of the fleet. with my letter of august the 31st to the board and the director of transportation, we submitted additional data, current data from yellow cab and from luxor cab that independently updates supplements and coner firms the conclusions reached by staff in the report that supports this item. if anything, there is a huge unmet underestimated the size

of the demand and if anything, the current data through june of this year demonstrates that that demand is literally huge and there are more taxi cabs needed in san francisco than even staff has identified in its report. our data shows that telephone orders are not being met. they can't be processed. they are lost. our data shows that the hails on the streets aren't meeting my better result. one could reasonably estimate that 500 cabs would not be enough additional cabs to meet the demand that exists right now. in fact, the conclusions that we reached and the graphics supporting our letter supports the conclusion of an additional 700 cabs would not be enough to meet that current demand. under proposition a, transportation code section 1 11 5 and the city's first

policy this board is mandated by law to meet the convenience and necessity process in san francisco. it's about time that you do it now and we appreciate your attention to the matter. >> could i ask mr. ward one question? >> . >> mr. ward, could you just address very briefly the concern about workers' compensation? >> can't hear you. >> the question is about workers' compensation. all set? >> very good. >> the question -- one the comments raised earlier was about workers' compensation and i assume it's the case that under this program the color scheme would provide the workers' compensation's coverage for the cab. could you address that if would you like to? >> directors, i will confirm. as is mandated under the transportation code, as well as it has been for many, many years, yellow cab, luxor cab and the other full service color schemes are mandated to

and do provide workers' compensation for all gate and gas drivers. and under the proposed plan by staff, these will be gate and gas operated medallions. under a lease. >> very good. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> good afternoon. here i come again, this has been since 2007s we have been screaming for taxi cabs at my company and full service companies. we have not basis point able to address our demand for over five years now, if not longer. we are maximum capacity with our system. we're putting up to 82 people a day in our taxi cabs and far exceeds the national average. creating the ability to provide the staff -- the metrics that

provide the staff with the paratransit, provides a reliable cab service chart. if you had item 7 on your chart that was sent to you, would tell you the districts by break buon of inadequate cab service. have you gotten a chance to look at that? we forwarded it to you. you can see the numbers are pretty crazy and these passengers that are calling two and three cab companies at one time are in competition with the smartphone apps or charging people credit card guarantees for pick up and it's causing extensive no-go that we call going there and nobody is there. our response time is 11 minutes, 48 seconds at normal time, but peak time hours it can really fall apart for us. our city shouldn't be treated this way. our residents of san francisco shouldn't be treated this way anymore. when we're maxed out and we

have been this way for five years, how can you not think about giving you more cabs to put on the street? it's a slam-dunk. i appreciate all of your abilitis to create this thing and the most important thing, this creates jobs for people. so thank you for your time. >> thank you, sir. >> kevin carroll; martin kosinskski. >> good afternoon, i am the executive director of the hotel council of san francisco. i also serve on the hotel transportation plan community advisory committee and i also am a resident of district 7 in san francisco. the hotel council is a non-profit member organization that represents over 70 hotels and 25,000 hotel rooms in san francisco. we have the pleasure of welcoming millions of visitors to our city every year. we strongly recommend the adoption of the resolution before you to expand the number of taxis up to 200 full-time taxis. the issue of lack of taxis is

one of the biggest concerns of hotel industry and work we have done with our members. we have worked closely with the mta and applaud your efforts to do more research to find out the true number of taxis that are needed. we have worked with your researcher and with the taxi companies to get this answer. when a major convention or an event is in town, it becomes even worse. we do have situations where there might be 40 or 50 people waiting for a taxi cab at one time and for hotels outside of the downtown corridor can get worse. hotel guests spend money and time out of the hotels and across san francisco. for every $300 spent in the hotel, $700 is spent outside in the city with taxi cabs, restaurants, attractions and tours. something like this that could help get more of our visitors out to be able to spend more time and money outside of the

areas into more parts of our city will benefit us all. we ask your hope to help our visitors, our taxi companies, businesses large and small and our residents of san francisco by approving this resolution to add more taxi medallions. thank you for your time. >> martin cosinskski. >> good afternoon, i'm a taxi driver driving for green cab. usually i drive in the mornings. it's amazing. it seems to me that they are working in different cities for whatever reason, because when i wock, work, i get up at 3:30 and pick up my cab by 4:30 and sometime issues wait for two hours for the first ride and

every permit is going to make me and people like me and other drivers make less money. and it's really hard to support the family on the income of full-time taxi drivers, around $35,000, $40,000 a year. i do support the peak-time permits, which you tried in single operating permit. i think you should issue more of those. they will be on the roads when needed. you know, just a general comment seems like you took 20-30 million dollars out of

the industry and you haven't invested in that industry even $1. not in working transitions for the driver and haven't approved any kind of service. i was part of the group in '95, which we supported the sharing of the dispatch data, which was greatly improved the cabs. you haven't picked that issue up and overall i'm extremely disappointed with your work. >> thank you next speaker. >> amy lawrence, followed by keith rasckin. >> good afternoon; >> ladies and gentlemen of the audience and commissioners, good afternoon. i am shocked at the speed of which you destroying the income of the average driver in san francisco. given medallions away nonstop, only to find out the story of

the income of the san francisco taxi driver -- what does he actually make? do you have any idea? put it out more medallions is fine, but san francisco has a logistics problem, and it's that gridlock and peak time that it takes place. why don't you stand around union square at 2:00 a.m. and watch hundreds of taxis centraling the city looking for income when there is no one around. you are going to add 200 cabs to that? between 2 and 6 there is no business at all. the cab firms know that, but they just collect fees. they talk a lot about service and shortages, but what you really have is income, bribes and kickbacks. most of the big firms in town i have worked for. you can't get a taxi until you pay $5 to $10 on top of regular fees. you don't talk about that, do you? you don't talk about the driver that can't pay his bills because for a given day he

didn't make gate and gas. you talk about service. you talk about everything connected to the taxi industry. you hear attorneys coming up and telling you you are short 500 cabs. that is all nonsense. you have a peak time problem that you can't control with your buses and you can't control them with the limousines, but you are going to control them with taxi cabs by putting 200 more on the streets. i will show you on the screen -- it shows in the past ten years the economic recovery has created more jobs at 7-14 dollar and hour. thank you for your time. >> next speaker, please. >> keith rasckin. [ applause ] [ reading speakers' names ]. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon, my name is keith rasckin. so great

transportation for a great city. thank you. i can believe in that. my platte metaphor for the cab industry, more men, get them in there shoveling water out. this thing is sinking quickly. you will put 200 medallions on and have drivers that are new, training them, along with the regular drivers that go through and have to cover the attrition of the system. you will put 200 drivers into the system that don't know the system. meanwhile you are taking drivers on the k list and screwing them by telling them that drivers invested 20 years of their lives, good drivers and telling them we will not

give you a medallion. this thing is completely backwards and makes no sense. if you look it from the top-down business point of view, you are taking a drivering force and shoving them into the ground. and the whole idea about dispatch, now i'm a dispatcher. i have been dispatching for years and i know the business. i can sit in dispatch and the drivers don't take orders. why don't they take orders? they don't understand the system. maybe they don't understand the language. maybe they are working 20 hours a day if you are not looking at the drivers you are wasting your time with the 200 medallions. you have to look at the big picture and furthermore it's about the numbers. and the numbers show that with 200 medallions the gross revenue for 12 month is about $14.5 million. the net after expenses and insurance will be about $11.5

million that. is what we're talking about here. $11.5 million. >> thank you, sir. next speaker. >> mark gruberg. [speaker [ reading speakers' names ]. >> good afternoon, mark gruberg with uni[kwrao-euts/]ed taxi workers. this is completely premature. you have commissed a study, you are spending our money on a study and you are jumping the gun by pre-supposing something that none of us have seen and the director has alluded to that study. if it's a public study, we deserve to see it brand new go ahead and do anything based on that study. now we have reference to a private study that is being done, which none of us have seen. and i'm sure it's a self-serving document on the part of these cab companies and we deserve to see that as well. you can't go ahead with this on

that basis. secondly, at the last meeting, members of this board said that they wanted to take up the question of drivers on the list and sounded like there was some sympathy for doing something like this. this would be a preemptive strike. so for that reason as well, all of this needs to be discussed as a piece, at a single pc & n hearing and i will give you a couple of practical reasons. it says in the report there are big events coming up in early october. you are never going to get these cabs on the streets for those events. absolutely impossible. take my word for it. secondly, it happens to provide in the transportation code that you can only hold one of these

hearings in a 12 -month period. if you hold this hearing today, you are precluded from holding another such hearing for 12 months and then take the report and probably throw it away, because it will be antiquated by that time and forget about the people on the list, because they won't have their say in it and all that will happen is the corporate welfare is that the medallions represent. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. [ applause ] . >> ica pardinas. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon. honest to god, i cannot believe what is happening here. i mean, this is beyond ludicrous. all of the people on the medallion list are near 50 and older including myself. we have been waiting and waiting and waiting. the bottom line, not one single medallion should be given to anyone, but the people who have earned these medallions. what are you thinking? you are just going to take that

from me? i am looking at you. i am looking at you, you, you, you, you and you. really? you are going to do that to me and all of these other drivers have been slaving out here? i am not rich. i don't have a san francisco condo. i'm not getting over. there are hours at least four hours out of a 12-hour shift, there is nothing. we're just driving around in circles, ask somebody who knows what is going on in the streets. not the paperwork. ask me. ask the driver what is going on. think about had you go home tonight. any metalion issued should go directly to the people waiting for it, who have been working for, who have been slaving for it. thank you. [ applause ] >> next speaker [ reading speakers' names ]. >> good afternoon, mr. kim. >> president of desoto cab. good afternoon, directors. first i want to say that i

support this legislation. i think very strongly that many of the ills of taxi industry have been self-inflicted. i believe that the rise of these alternative services, people who should not be picking up the public, street land because we do not have enough taxi cabs servicing the city. i think every metric shows this. secondly, i think we have done a terrible job of how these medallions are actually being operated. most of these medallions, yes, they are run by companies, but many of them are leased out to third partied, brokers, individuals that are unaccountable in terms of how they are operating the medallion. my concern is when you issue these medallions that are directly leased to companies, what objective criteria are you going to use? are you actually going to use real data? or self-reported data? are you going to make sure these medallions are run properly with the right insurances? and if they are not, are you going to take them

back? my concern is as you lease the medallions don't exacerbate the current problems that the industry is facing. one thing that we can do is make sure that the medallions that you issue go to companies that are really providing the services. i am in an unusual situation with desotoa, because i have more orders for my fleet that i know what to do with. so wearing my desoto hat i applaud you for rewarding companies like mine that have done these services, but i don't know if you give them to me or yellow or luxor or some other company that are just brokering out the medallions to individuals? so i ask you to look objectively at the criteria that use to lease out the medallions. i hope as we go forward that the majority of the medallions continue to be issued and sold

to working individual drivers. >> thank you, mr. kim. >> terra housman. [ reading speakers' names ]. >> good afternoon. >> hello. last week when you pulled the rug from out from under the drivers on the waiting list, there were voices of concern among the board members that we have to do something for those drivers soon. i suggest doing this before you do something for those drivers soon is premature. but i suspect you are going to be passing this anyway. so i would like to suggest that in the resolution, that you change some wording. the fifth paragraph down, which is the second "resolved." may i suggest that you either strike the "shall be operated with a hybrids electric compressed natural gas, et cetera." two possibilities. either strike that, because the

goal was to get 20% reduction in the carbon footprint of the taxi fleet. you exceeded that tremendously. you see that 49% reduction in the fleet by insisting over the past few years that all cabs -- all new cabs be hybrids. but this has produced unseen consequences. it's very, very difficult now for a family with three children or people with a lot of luggage to get a cab with enough capacity for them. i drive a 6-passenger van, and desoto has more of them in fleet than others, but still i'm running myself ragged trying to keep up with those calls. because we need cabs with higher capacity. and the higher capacity vans, i'm sorry, are not hybrids. so

please either add in "and large-capacity vehicles," or please strike, "everything shall be operate widhybrid, et cetera." from that resolution. >> thank you. >> dede workman, peter witt, carl russeau. >> good afternoon. >> i'm dede workman the director of public policy for the san francisco chamber of commerce. i have a letter for each us, stating the clam bers' strong support in the increase of tami medallions. the unmet demand for cabs in san francisco is well-documented and well-demonstrated. this need is only going to grow as the citis a population grows as our business continues it rebound and tourism increases. as anyone who visits or lives or works in san francisco will tell you there are not enough cabs on the street and with all due respect to the drivers because i believe what they are

saying about their own reality, it's true in their cases, but as a consumer, and someone who lives here, as i do in district 9, and works in the city. i will tell you treasvirtually impossible for me to get a cab most of the time. so in representing the chamber, we want to convey to you the chambers' strong support and urge you to increase the number of medallions. >> thank you. next speaker. >> peter witt. >> good afternoon, mr. witt. >> with all due respect to the chamber of commerce, mostly impossible. what does that mean? we do have a dispatch mandate. i would like to know whatever happened to it? you have. it by the way, bought, sold, hook, line and sinker without data. you have no data. this is a biased report by staff. here is a report by staff -- can i show the monitor,

please? monitor, please. i don't see my picture up there? where is my picture, by the way? this is data that has been skewed by staff. my favorite picture is this one. where it shows you what is going on. can anybody make sense out of that? peak times. peak times it goes and goes. where is the data on that? really, creative contributions, that is the word i was looking for. i have been giving you creative contributions in the form of 1,000 customer every year for the last 15 and that also includes visitors. this current data that you are doing doesn't include visitors. not one visitor. the hotels as far as you are concerned cab-sharing might be an answer at peak times. when every wants any one thing at the same time, guess what? it's hard