some of them are 80 years old. the mantra is drive until you drop. -- -- they would cover these people within the next three years or so. i want to explain the half-price offer quickly. there is no down payment required. there is a 90,000 equity advantage; the day someone give this for half price without a down payment they can sell it and make 90,000. minus the transfer fee. also the 1000 a dollar a month upgrade; [indiscernible] i think these people don't understand that and hopefully they will give it some thought. >> chairman nolan: next speaker please.

>> i was hoping to come here earlier like a couple of months ago. i was in a car accident, in a taxi here in seven san francisco, hit by an uninsured motorist; i have six damage discs. i can believe that you guys are going to try to ticket where with these drivers are work for; i worked as a driver seven years, it is one of the most disgusting jobs i have had in my whole entire life, being a cab driver in san francisco. the cab companies treat you like crap. not all companies offer

uninsured motorist coverage. it my case, the guy said, we have workers compensation. why should they be covered by workers compensation? second of all, safety checks that you guys are supposedly doing, i have seen seven cars in a row at national cab where the air bags did not deploy. in my car the airbags did not deploy. the seatbelt was kept together by clothespin. you want to take away something that they need to provide for their family.

they put up with a lot of crap. they have not talked about this to you guys yet. i did come in on april 24, i spoke to one of the board members here in regards to some of these issues. i was reserved to a young lady over here in the green, and once we left that office all she did was dismiss me. send me over to eric -- who yelled at me and jarvis was concerned is whether or not i was going to run for office again. he was upset when i ran for district 6 supervisor two years ago. you guys need to take a look at this. if you will issue more medallions, but public safety first. i listen to kqed, and listen to lies come out her mouth. i'm not attacking her.

but you have cabs out there with no air bags; seat belts put together with clothespins. please don't take away the future of these guys. >> chairman nolan: next speaker please. >> good afternoon mr. lawrence. >> ladies and gentlemen, commissioners, good afternoon. i welcome this opportunity to speak here today. basically i have to say this. i believe this is a big horse and pony show; you have implemented your strategy. cabdrivers are getting phone calls whether they will accept every value for 150,000.

-- --- you inherited a taxi commission, you do not inherit proposition k. you are taking away what is the taxi drivers pension and lifetime income. with no compensation. you have given them a kick in the ass with no compensation. that is what you intended to do today. it's already been implemented. your big meeting here today is awash. it was my hope that when mr. reiskin became director they would have erased what one of

the most corrupt men in san francisco did. you are converting pensions of taxidrivers into your own income. you will give free bus rides to children by using medallions that you will sell. what is all that about? if you look back at the history of this commission, you look back over the 5-6 years, the last 3-4 years when it inherited the tax commission, you pay no attention to what any cab driver has given under any subject. -- you fed them dirt and kept them in the dark while you implement the policies. we are not criminals. we are taxi drivers but

basically take people around the city but we cannot pay our rent. 25-35-15 years ago, and you think you do not own them any compensation as long as it goes into your checking account. maybe it is time for a civil grand jury to investigate. and what you are doing. it seems that you have no conscience at all in the city. thank you for your time. (applause) >> good afternoon. chairman nolan, directors. i am very curious as to why you gave us three minutes today.

only one minute last month. when they all showed up. now they're not here because this is things giving week; they need to be working and serving the public. this is disgusting. the irishman is correct. you should go back and figure out what the nolan family really means. they will be a challenge to what you did. this is not funded yet and yet you decided to shut the door on the taxidrivers. i'm glad that is him hyoshi is back; it a great job running the meetings. (applause) glad that director rubke showed to listen to what happened, and i hope you have a summary of what occurred of the town hall

meetings. if you don't have a summary, she failed you in that way. director reiskin, you know that most of the people left in the afternoon session after this out there were getting this proposal shoved down their throat or put up their you know what. i don't fault christian hyoshi for that. the only thing a fault is that there should have been alterations to the proposal and we should have copies here. we should have lots of copies of the presentations presented by staff; when this comes up, we don't get to see copies at the meeting. this is what we call a shondic [sounds like] not something good about what your staff has done to us.

99.9% of the meetings i attend we always hear the staff report before we have public comment. it did not occur here. the down payment process was discussed hardly at all at a town hall meetings. very little time was given to it because so much is important to number 11. in fact if i miss just, because those people at the top of the list have been working so hard and made a commitment to the industry don't tell them go to you know where. because we don't like you. it's better to start with maybe 50 people; charts maybe 60,000; the next 50, 100,000, and the next 50 150. >> chairman nolan: next speaker please.

>> good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. i realize this is totally pointless but i have to say my piece. we you don't care. your are cold-blooded the way you treat people. i live in san francisco 43 years and taxi driver for 23 years; we are treated like garbage by everybody. for god's sake, look at the tradition of taxidrivers; i have been waiting list for 17 years, number 90. i'm 66 years old. i cannot buy a taxi because it

would not give me alone. you virtually single-handedly all of you ruined my life. i got sick the other day and i realized, if i get sick i have nothing. i will lose everything. i will be on the street. you always come in and give awards to different muni drivers and people; you never even recognize a cab driver who is done good service to the city. never even recognize it. we are like second-class citizens to you. we have said basically that's the way we are. we have always been that way to you people, to everybody in san francisco. san francisco has a tradition. they voted for us to get 3 medallions. and you have never carried that. you take money from us and

give it to the muni, who already has a surplus, giving away free rides and god knows what else. because muni has such a high pension; we get nothing, you take money from our pockets and give us nothing in return. it is disgraceful and criminal for you to do this. (applause) >> chairman nolan: next speaker. >> good afternoon. >> mark brewer, united taxicab workers. this is one of the bitterest days in the more than 20 years that i have been active on these issues; and i have seen many bitter base especially since his body took over. how can you listen to the

heart-felt please, the angry-please and turn them away? and you will. you are not an objective decision-making policy. you are group that has your own interests, that conflict with the interests of the people in this room. and you are simply turning away from them, and feeding your own coffers. just to give you a figure, i added what you have thus far gain from medallions sales, and what you expect again and leases, it's over 75 million. could be hundred million or more. depending what you did in your future. i know this lights up some of your hearts because that is what you are after. you are taking the futures of

people who have put their lives into this industry and you are turning it into your own benefit, your own profit, their own use, and the hell with them. go ahead and do it. we'll see you in court. we'll see you in the ballot box. (sigh) i don't know what else to say. you're living it will the other thing i will say -- i hate the comments on the particulars of the proposal i find odious, there is no guarantee on anything here even for those top 150. all it says is that they are entitled to return medallions.

somebody has to die or a medallion have to be revoked before they have a guarantee of that the down. and only if his board would later approve the issuance of new medallions to those people could even the tiniest fraction of them ever expect to see a medallion. this is heartless, cruel. this is beyond words. thank you. (applause) >> >> >> in the famous stanford university experiment volunteers were asked to deliver a series of electric shocks, stronger and stronger each time, i unseen victim in the next room. even though the lodges could hear the victim screaming, they

still pulled a lever. the researchers was done. the suppose most individuals possessed a higher conscience that would force them at some point to stop torturing a fellow human being. during follow-up interviews, dissident explain that the fact that the authority figure present in the room allow them to override their consciousness. and authority figure present encouraging them to pull the lever, they felt no choice but to keep pushing the lever. you are inflicting real pain on real people. we watched pull the lever year

after year everyone knows that not one of you would advise the scheme on your own. not one of you is cruel enough to be ramrod. you have a circle of friends and neighbors, and i'm sure you will not tell them over dinner today i stole the future of the family from a guy from mexico who was driving a cab 20 years; a real person afraid to come here intimidated by all of you. asset protection. classic mitt romney, capitalism; -- [indiscernible] he is going to say look at all the cab driver butt i kicked, vote for me. on the city street if you saw

a bully robbing a kid you would interven or call 911. i wish this were a secret vote. you would not get a vote. we know how you will vote. you would know how you will say to the lowest paid workers in the city, go to hell. prove me wrong. i would love to come back here and apologize. >> [indiscernible]

>> i am not a taxicab driver. this whole business of the medallions is a broken promise; they signed on to be taxidrivers with the hope of having a medallion. now, all of you on this board - i am sure receive retirement benefits. their promise to you. if they were denied to you you would go to court; you would be very angry more angry than these people in this room. if you are going to pass this resolution i think all of you should give up your retirement benefits, sign them over, and put them in the mta fund don't take a tax deduction. you have to make sacrifices to. and you better sleep on this. (applause)

> this will be my third time. i would like to thank mr. chairman for giving us this time. in 1985 when i started driving taxis, i used to live here in the city around -- and i'd take the 90 bus to go to work. the bus driver - we became friends. and the metah officer, we used to take the bus at the same time too, 1988. since 1988, the driver, the muni driver, i know is retired now. the officer i know has retired with full benefits, 40

acres [indiscernible] -- all i did when i signed up for the waiting list was to have my own 40 acres -- [indiscernible] so that i can have my time when i retired, with the time i put in. i have seen everyone here on the board, you are here to help the city, individual stakeholders. i agree with the proposal here that smpta put on, the goal is to help stakeholders. how can you help stakeholders when we have side cabs that advertise on your website, putting 1500 private cabs on the street. a all that we ask was to give

everyone on the waiting list the medallion to compete. we want everyone to make money. we want everyone the lives in the city they can call the cab company and get a cab in 5 minutes. i everyone would be happy. when i started driving, i used to go to the airport in 1988. and during that time, driving around, i would see your signs. you work for the public. you have a sign, running for supervisor of san mateo county. you give your life to the public. [indiscernible]

being on the board means you want to help the people of san francisco. help everyone by voting no. >> the last two people have turned in the speaker card. >> i was not going to speak, i don't like to talk to walls but i thought again. i like the sound of my own voice. this conversation started with director heinicke. and i said to him, i think that you are up to nefarious things. >> he asked if i thought that i was receiving personal profit.

>> perhaps he was not. it doesn't take -- the people who do the real harm in the world are people who sacrificed other people for a few abstractions as in this quote from director heinicke's e-mail, which i believe is inappropriate. it said the nta must have revenue; if we do not push for that we are sacrificing the needs of the city to placate a few cabdrivers. this reminded me of something i read 20 years ago, from a book by joseph brosky, a russian, who grew up in stalinist russia, he wrote an essay on evil. at the end it says, no matter

how evil your enemy is the crucial thing is that he is human. although incapable of loving another like ourselves, evil takes root when one man starts to think he is better than another which is what you have here. you are listening to these people how you are ruining their lives, and you are saying there's nothing we can do about it because you are serving the public. what you can take from this is a city small amounts compare to what the city needs, this is not going to solve the city's deficit problems because the deficit problems are endemic. the start of the federal government. it starts with a policy of war. does not come from cabdrivers. what you are doing would have little effect of the budget robin; it will have a devastating effect on those people. i know this will not have no

effect on director heinicke, but i will hope that the rest of you will take about this change your mind about what you have already decided to do. thank you very much. [indiscernible] >> hi i am barry [indiscernible] i don't have a whole lot to say because i have already been saying it, and people have been saying the same thing. cabdrivers are some of the lowest paid people here; they may have busy nights, the ones who work the good shifts might make some money but the others have to work this slow shifts; they make around 25,000 here, they stay in the business hoping to get a medallion, and

what you guys are doing is taking the money that a career cabdrivers look forward to, they don't get any benefits, they don't get employee protection, there are days that you don't make minimum wage and they are looking forward to becoming a medallion holder. i know 150,000 dollars sounds like a great deal saving 150,000. but you are not saving 150,000 if you have worked all your life to earn this medallions. it is wrong what you are doing; i don't house to put it. medallion is an operating permit. the drivers are the ones who go out and risk their lives,

wear their backs out, dave and after years. you feel the mta is more deserving of money to pay off the debt. none of this project it revenues going back into the tax industry; very little. maybe have a lane where taxis can drive. you are not doing very much to crack down on illegal operators. whether or not this is legal or other things are legal, there are vehicles with no commercial plateno