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 to get. in new york, when it rains in rush hour, there is a thing called the "change of shift." they call it something else too, but i forget the term

right now. a change of shift. what are you going to do about that? by the way, what is this temporary full-time medallion? what is a temporary full-time medallion? i never heard of anything in my whole life. it's absurd. it's biased. it's staff-related and an in-house report. that is with a we had last time. excuse me. so we had last time. when malcolm was in '07, remember? your first and only pc & n hearing. >> thank you, next speaker. >> carleau. >> thank you. i have been a leased driver in this town since 1995. my question to mta, are you trying to kill off the leased driver? are you trying to starve us out of existence? there is not

enough time to study what you released and now you are talking about 200 around the clock cabs possibly. it doesn't make any sense. at the same time you are doing this, you are allowing sleazy, shady fake cab companies to proliferate on the streets while as my colleagues have said are driving for hours. i just don't see how we can continue like this and i'm speaking for myself, but it seems to me the mta is pushing the drivers to strike. you are pushing us to strike. thank you. >> thank you, sir. next speaker, please. lynn van winkle. david silverglide, carl mcmuredo. >> i'm here on behalf of the of the golden gate restaurant association and over 100-member locations within the bay area.

we strongly support the proposal to increase the number of taxi cabs in san francisco. the difficulty in finding taxis directly impacts the ability for residents and travelers to patronize our member restaurants. hospitality is our no. 1 industry in san francisco. part of being hospitality is helping people get to where they need to do when they need to get there. additional taxi cabs would certainly help in that regard. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> david -- he is not here for that. he is here for another item. [ reading speakers' names ]. >> good afternoon. >> thank you, mr. nolan. directors, i sent an email yesterday, maybe you got it. i suggested that you might want to defer your decision for one meeting until september 18th, to consider make something amendments.

in the vernacular, the term [tkpho-lg/], i am confused. i this these are quasimedallion categories rather than medallions. so that is one amendment you could clean up the language. also, i think you should stipulate that there will be a maximum percentage of such permits as compared to the number of medallions, like 10%. i mean, notwithstanding slippery slope and conflict of interest concerns, i do think it makes sense to have some flexibility built in and to stabilize the companies with company-operatored medallions, even though as the permit holder -- and the other thing, the people on this medallion waiting list, the language in the regulation you passed last

time, the legislation said that you may issue rather than you will issue or shall issue medallions to the waiting list. i think you need to to come back at the next meeting and be definitive as to what your plan is. i don't think it's difficult [skp-ept/] for the difficulty in making the decision itself. i do think if you are going to issue something like 150 permits of this nature, you should also issue 50 as a measure of good faith to the people on the waiting list and define what the plan s. i will say quickly there is a recession of sorts, the sidewalks do roll up at certain hours on week needs and on the euberissue to explain will your plan is. [ applause ] >> [ reading speakers' names ] dave haly, former medallion

holder. i keep thinking that i will write my novell, but i come here and you give me better stuff than i can think of myself. you could give these to people on the west and i'm sure john lozar could give them to individual drivers. basically most of what you are listening to is fiction of one kind or another. it's actually very slow right now and by time these medallions will be in winter and at which case there will be far too many cabs on the streets. there is no reason you should be pushing this forward without talking to mr. hara. i talked to him and indicated he might be putting cabs on the

street, but able to do it in a scientific manner rather than the old method of back-door politics. you have really given yourselves a really bad reputation over the last couple of months as an organization that pays no attention whatsoever to the drivers and puts on these events as a farce. i suggest that you hold an actual meeting where this can be discussed and wait for mr. hara to tell you whether or not you should have cabs on the streets. thank you very much. >> thank you, sir next speaker. >> benjamin dallas. [ reading speakers' names ] >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon, board of directors, my name is benjamin, national veterans cab. i am here to speak against this

resolution. i would like to respond to mr. lozar's [kph-efpt/]. he noted his average response time is 11 minutes, 48 seconds. you call for a cab and the cab shows up in 11 minutes and 48 seconds. that is our average response time. that seems reasonable to me. that is a reasonable amount of time to wait for a cab. and that is with this so-called drastic shortage of peak-time cabs which yes, friday and saturday nights we could use some more cabs. monday, tuesday, wednesday, i'm driving those nights and it's not the case. another thing i wanted to talk about, i wanted to frame this in an ethical term. last meeting, miss brinkman felt the $5-$10 tip out. well, essentially what the mta is doing with this proposal by

handing the medallions directly to the cab companies instead of the working drivers you are taking thousands of dollars a month from these drivers into your own pockets, into the mta's pockets. you guys are the bad guys. you guys are the ones taking thousands of dollars for yourself, not $5-10. so i want you to think about that. we have got a for-profit company here is that is making regulations that they can summarily profit from. it reminds me of the downfall of communist russia. it's ludicrous the bureaucracy here. i would also like to in closing say give these medallions to the guys on the list. c'mon? put them out there. and if they buy them or sell them, that is the right thing to do. >> thank you, sir.

>> charlesrathbone. >> why with euberfound their beginnings in san francisco and not boston or new york? part of the reason is the shortage of cabs in our city. we have a large unmet demand for cab service. so we're asking you to address that issue today by issuing more cabs. in the meantime, we have not just been sitting here like deer in the head lavins, lamps.

you have the data, including current data. we do not need to wait for net another study. directors, we earnestly want to service our customers, all of them, and in order to do that, we need the cabs. please give us the cabs that we need to do that. please vote yes on item 11 today. thank you. >> thank you, sir. >> next speaker. >> [ reading speakers' names >> good afternoon, >> good afternoon, ] i have no idea what i'm going to say here, but this conversation goes through my head week to week for 27 years now. i'm clear there is nothing that i can see here in a manner that will have any effect on your

decision here. could i have a time-out? >> please. miss boomer gentlemen, go right ahead, sir. why don't you start again? >> i'm sorry. >> okay. i know that i am not invited to the meetings at which these decisions are made. there are probably several of you on the board, who are in the invited to the meetings in which these decisions are made. i would like to think that you are each human beings, and that you have some awareness of the absolute pain that your decisions and the people that made those decisions before this came under the purview of the mta. i hope that you take some personal -- you don't leave here and don't think about us

people. i have my medallion and i'm very lucky. the pain you have caused, i would like any of you who would care to come ride in my taxi and come sit in the front seat any day and see what it's like out there. i have waybills going back decades, probably, and in 2011 i was empty 66% of the time i had my taxi. so 34% of time i was occupied. to hear this scheme requiring another 100-200 medallions, it can't be supported by data. it can only be a political decision and i know mr.

heinicke has pushed for this direction for a long, long time and i'm sorry that all of you are being pressured into making what is a horrible, horrible choice [ applause ] . >> thank you. next speaker. [ reading speakers' names ]. >> good afternoon, sir. >> good afternoon, sir. i'm a cab driver and drive for national veteran cab and this is my first time being here in the meeting. i have been driving since 1985 on and off. and i have been an outstanding driver. i was once awarded one of the best cab drivers and poster person for the cab industry to the newspaper. i'm on the list and i have been

following what is going on with the industry the past five years. i don't like it. the industry needs changes. we need more cabs. that is true. when i studied in 1985, i thought there was going to be a day like this to come. that is why i didn't put my name in the first place. so when i saw some of my co-workers that we started to together and put their names and got their medallions. now it comes to the time that i am on the list and can't get a medallion. i have been working here since 1985 and i was told i am one of the members. on the website it says you have already been a member already and told me that i can't get the medallion anymore. so i wanted to know, if your 200 medallions that you put up,

it's better to give it to the people on the list. the people that are driving and who are going to be driving and making a living. since 1985, i should be collecting my pension by now. i cannot afford at my age to pay $250,000 for a medallion. thank you. >> thank you, sir. [ applause ] >> peter jacobs. >> mr. jacobs. >> hi. good afternoon. i am in support of this proposition. i think we do need more cabs in the city. it's a well-known fact, i think. however,, i am concerned about how the medallions will be distributed, to which companies and by which processes that it's excited? i know mr. reiskin, you said it's going to be based on the volume of calls and level of responsiveness. however, in my

conversation, it was indicated it would be on a variety of other factors, including minimum pick up violations and these types of other things. there has to be a lot of transparency with regard to that, because there is so much influence, that i think it's the germ feeling at least, there is a lot of influence by the larger companies and make sure these are distributed evenly and fairly. so in closing, essentially what i'm trying to say that this should be delayed for the time beijing. being, first of all to get more information and the terms by which they will be distributed. [ reading speakers' names ]. >> good afternoon,