mustache around their vehicle. so every time i see that pink mustache it's like a knife going through my heart it's really very depressing to see that why don't you guys at least tell these guys and at least they can do that and another thing i want to say is that uber every hotel in san francisco and you see they are occupied by limo sines from the hotel go to the airport that was the best thing do you think that is existing now? every where we go you see all these limosines -- >> thank you, sir.

>> is there anyone else who wishes to address the board, would would you please step up? and if there's anyone left downstairs if you could please make your way up to room 400 thank you. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon. my name is mark goldstein i've been driving a cab for 25 years as have many of my colleagues it costs 13 hundred dollars a month to insure a cab that's liability and worker's comp and 150 for the comprehensive insurance all cabs need to be replaced every 3 years that's another expense we're heavily regulated operating costs are instantly increasing our income is being diluted by uber cabs

which are completely un regulated. cab drivers have no pensions or safety net. we the cab drivers do the job that is in the top 10 percent dangerous jobs in the nation. besides regulating us, sfmta should be protecting this vital industry. it will create more financial hardship at an already critical time. the cab drivers are the first people visitors meet and the last ones they see when they leave. you can help us by protecting us and then we can talk about adding more cabs.

thank you. >> thank you, sir. >> anyone else care to address the board? >> i've been driving a cab the last 18 years. i am supposed to buy a medallion but i have a problem with my credit because i wasn't qualified to buy the medallion. now, what i'm asking the board is first and foremost you should consider us. at least you should give us a break on the price. secondly, you are -- for yellow

and other companies you should lead it directly to us or at least some part of the medallion should come to the drivers thank you very much. >> thank you sir. applause. >> care to address the board this afternoon? afternoon. >> afternoon. you paid the canadian firm to say what you wanted to hear and now they are saying it. meanwhile under your miss management and even though i was working more 37 days more i made 7 thousand dollars less last year than 2011 you don't behave like a government agency but a profit making company. i'm reminded that hall burton is a town in canada. the ruined jobs in

toronto more cabs only makes it easier to get a cab where it is already easy to get a cab. you are on the very cusp of a new era of opportunity corruption. you have found a way to exclude the people and the cops. you operate in an authority vacuum with an enforcement vacuum and a dispatch service vacuum. the cops should just be issuing tickets for non-compliance.

without a license to pickup spontaneously -- the pirates always appear one generation before the destroyers. you are playing the game so badly you are just like the u.s. military in iraq you are teaching people it's a mistake to play by the rules. i really don't mean this sarcasm. in a business where things are out of grope group's control the question is where is the adult supervision? >> good afternoon. sir. my name is -- and i'm driving cab since last 8 years sir driving cab is really really very hard although we make money i know that you guys know that but it's very very hard you know. on the road 24 hours 7 days a

week it's really hard and we are just you know fighting for our livelihood it's our life -- it's not the millions or billions of dollars some corporate just some poor cab drivers who are struggling for their life so immaterial to oppose this electronic radio and i urge you guys please that do something i'm like 40 years old i have 4 kids and i need medical you know attention by the time i feel my back is hurting so at least you guys do some legislation like in a month that we can take off with the paid leave or something like that please do that. that's my suggestion. thank you very much. >> thank you. good afternoon.

i want to put something on the over head for sfg tv what i put on the over head is the picture of the pink mustang lined up at the hotel and it's very demoralizing to the drivers it's ruining their income that illegal operators are allowed with impunity to be out there. so a cease and desist order there maybe room for more cabs over time but the medallions would he won't be worth anything. it's irresponsible to do this to the people that are visiting the city to put them in vehicles with no

insurance no driver background checks so i hope you will do something to get the illegal operators out of the business thank you. >> anyone else to address the board. >> hearing none i'll call the public comment section over. please come forward. >> good afternoon i'm ann -- work for yellow i think it's unfair to yell because they put the out let for dispatching and the and at this point -- the customer just wants for all the cabs in the city because the customer doesn't care they just want to look who's the closest cab and get it so we have to look from the point of view of the customer there were 2

hundred new permits issued in the last year and a half and that's quite a lot and i think perhaps we need to issue more -- single cabs as opposed to -- the report is requesting too many cabs and i want to say if you want metrics to measure things i think it's too dangerous for the driver to enter the number of passengers i think she's asking for a little bit too much information however i have a solution that might help. you could ask for maybe one to 2 hundred volunteers of people who would be willing to enter information and we could also design a system or a gadget which we could put in the hands of 2

hundred volunteers which would be tied to the parking and taxi enforcement group so when they see an illegal limo parked in front of the taxi all they need to do is press a button they can put in the information as to where it is take a picture and go right to the department of traffic and parking and they can issue a five hundred dollars ticket and every cab driver that's pushed out has lost -- medallions today is the day of the worker saint joseph's day. god bless. >> the members of the public are still on item 9 how many more people in the room wish to address the board? >> okay go ahead sir. >> i'm going to be short. 14

years what i've seen today with this pink mustache and limo this is almost impossible. i strongly report electronic radio is no good for us or anyone. that's it. that's it. applause. >> i drive taxi driver but the rules parking lot from the airport but now nobody can help

out you know kick you out 24 hour and sometimes sunday night monday night rules probably have to open at least i had maybe a thousand you have to open a parking lot. struggle so anywhere you go [inaudible] to thank you very much. >> okay thank you. >> okay next speaker please. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon. i'll say something real quick i got a response about the intersection

of powell and sutter they need to keep the no left turn because of the cable cars coming down the hill but after they stop running we ought to be able to make a left turn there it's ridiculous it's not fair to the passenger it's not fair to the cab drivers and back to the other issue everybody is talking about you are allowing these illegal rogue gypsy cabs to operate just because they have an app and that's not right and you should be putting a stop to the use of this app i know you can stop the application from operating if you had the will and considering that you are asking hundreds of thousands of dollars of people to buy medallions and you are making us follow all these rules everything you know fees you tell us what we can charge on

the meter why should we follow all these rules when we can get a pink mustache or black town car and ignore all these rules? speaking of town cars they are not operating on a prearranged basis. uber's website says they don't take advantage advance notice anymore. these guys are blocking up all the entrances and soliciting people before they can get to the cabs i think you should hire a hundred investigators you need way more you have got 20 million dollars for that. >> thank you. i just want to say we don't need no more cabs. half of them they are sitting

in the lot right now okay? applause. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon my name is john can kessler i'd like to say the people that run uber and side car are very much in the game theory 2 types of players those that try to get ahead by following the rules and those that try to get ahead by ignoring the rules and i don't know which kind of people you want in this city i call that second group anarchists in

terms of more cabs currently if it's just about numbers then each cab in the city wouldn't be empty fifty percent of the time fifty percent of the time they are empty and you can check that fact. it's not a matter of numbers it's a matter of efficiency. if it was just about numbers, take a listen to this -- new york city has one cab per 634 people the city of san francisco has one cab for 450 people if you add -- one last item. one last item is credit cards i just basically figured out on average i pay excuse me -- five dollars 75 cents per shift for credit card

feeses. that's 3 million dollars for the industry as a whole. does it really cost them 3 million dollars to up keep those machines in the cars? i don't think so. applause. >> my name is -- i'm driving cab for nine years most of my colleagues -- these guys they are they don't make eye contact for sure they say go do something we can do nothing. we already push on the wall you know i just say that is totally illegal this radio cab driver i think everybody would agree with me -- the technology fee

we already have smart phones so we don't need anymore technology i think that's it thank you very much. good afternoon you are very intelligent people sitting in the panel i bought my medallion 3 years ago and after 3 years i bought my house which is almost 350 thousand dollars. i've been driving a taxi for the last 23 years and the rule was the people on the list they would get the permit now after the mta changed the rule but i was leasing before from the yellow and i think that i have not been rewarded i have been punished after 23

years serving the people of san francisco and that is not fair and now i heard that they are going to issue the permits for 250 thousand dollars. they have issued permits for free they have 8000 for free and why i have to pay 250 thousand dollars if you have to issue the permits for 150 thousand dollars then i am requesting also to reduce my price also thank you very much. applause. >> somebody else? >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon. i start driving from 1979 and i think the central app. because just last week one shift i picked 2

uber calls still waiting for uber they asked me if i was uber i said no they got in my cab and cancelled the uber the other thing about the insurance takes me 2 hundred to 3 hundred a month for insurance. la has a million dollars orange county and they pay only 500 dollars and i'm wondering i pay right now 140 dollars for liability and 2 hundred for you know for the full cover and also i'm paying 250 dollars for worker's comp and although i'm a driver

but i'm not covered because of that i own a medallion would you guys please do some study on that too? i have asked for many years and nobody is following this. that's it. >> thank you, sir. applause. good afternoon i've been a cab driver since 1994 and right now the business is so bad because of all the apps anybody can get in their own car and pick up people. 2 things to compete with that a city wide app that calls any cab in the city to come to their house we can do it you will have better service everything is better than them and innocent enforce the rules and go after those companies insurance -- they don't follow

any of the rules i don't see why we can't go after them just on that basis right now business is so bad we need to do something or else all the money the people paid for medallion what is it worth? it's not worth anything. thank you. applause. >> i like to invite you guys to sit with us for 10 to 12 hour shift we'll pay your wages whatever city hall pays you whenever you guys make a thousand dollars a day we're willing to give each one of you plus your secret ree we'll show if chauffeur you around san francisco we are taking all the people around the city. takes

from lombard street 15 minutes. with the current situation with uber and side car i don't know how you guys are regulating these i'm waiting for someone to get side impact in one of these illegal cabs or one of these illegal limos so that the san francisco mta can get a lawsuit on their hands and plus the people issuing these licenses they can get a lawsuit and that's going to happen eventually but my humble request to you all these people are hard workers i've been in line for a medallion i applied 1997 my number came up they wanted me to pay 250 thousand dollars to buy a medallion. at the time i paid to get that medallion i got scammed out of

mta they took my money and now they are selling medallions like new york is selling medallions we will pay your salaries come ride with us and see what the situation is with all the illegal taxis you guys don't understand the situation you need to put yourself in our shoes if you were to lose your jobs -- we're frustrated here and i understand we're on a time schedule whatever you need to listen to me. >> everybody gets the same amount of time. >> so please humble request put your self in our shoes. when you guys don't have a job maybe you will be taxi cab drivers or something. applause. >> last one.

>> by the way there's in the cab industry we don't really have a retirement system the closest thing to that was you finally get your medallion but you have to work half the year then you get a small pension from the company whatever but abc actually did an expose on the mta they had a payroll of eighty million dollars in 2012 the biggest offenders were executives one dude his base salary was 106 thousand he was

paid more than twice from doing so much overtime when they retire they are going to get a great big fat pension how are they going to pay for that? a lot of drivers got on the list and you know to get their medallions you know your name comes up now you don't get your medallion you have to buy it. so we don't have any retirement system you basically die on the job. and that's a fact. thanks. >> last speaker and unless somebody else identifies themselves okay good afternoon sir. >> hi i have lived in san francisco since 1980 and have been driving a tax i since 1984 i think that all of these people who are here have only

one question. what is the beef? okay? after many years of driving a taxi cab in san francisco, i feel that i make less than minimum wage in san francisco. minimum wage in san francisco since 2000 has been 10 dollars per hour many taxi drivers are making less than 10 dollars an hour per hour when i started driving a taxi 1984 the number of taxi cabs in san francisco were only 650 right now the number is 1700 cabs. at the same time every single day there are twaen between 7 hundred and 9 hundred limos are operating illegally in san

francisco and at the same time the population of san francisco since 1980 which was 735 thousand right now it has reached to 8 hundred thousand people okay? 650 taxi cabs in 1984 and in 2013735 taxi cabs. at the same time many buses are chartering from one place to another so the taxi driver at the most gets 2 to 3 rides every shift and we're not talking about the city that has a convention every single day. >> if anybody else ca