mr. chairman, board. mark gruberg, taxicab workers. regarding the cpuc rule making proceeding, i really feel that the agency missed the boat by not cracking down on these totally illegal services before the cpuc got into the picture. and now the the cpuc has given its interim blessing to lift and also to [speaker not understood] not so far to side cars, as far as i'm aware. to continue their operations, while the rule making is pending. * but this is a serious situation , not only from the point of view of the industry, but from the point of view of the public. the insurance industry has weighed in in the cpuc rule making and stated unequivocally that there is no insurance when a side car or a lift driver picks up. the private insurance that they may have on their personal vehicle does not cover this situation. and although lift claims to have a $1 million excess liability policy, the excess liability is not going to apply if the underlying insurance doesn't [inaudible]. also, if you read the contract that lift has, both the drivers an

mr. gruberg. >>> thank you again. mark gruberg. i'd like to echo some of the comments of the previous speakers, particularly mr. rathbone who is a manager at the company that has the most ramp taxis in the city and has the most to gain from the issuance of ramp taxi medallions to cab companies. and yet clearly recognizes the main incentive for a driver to drive the ramp taxi, to continue driving a ramp taxi is the possibility of gaining a ramp taxi medallion. and although this legislation doesn't preclude the issuance of ramp taxi medallions to drivers in the future, it's certainly, certainly points away from it. and i would urge you very strongly. leave this door of opportunity open for drivers. too many other doors have been closed to them. i also have to say that i oppose further leasing of medallions. i know that it's in the agency's financial interest to do this, but i think that the agency's financial interests too often have been trumping the interest of drivers, the interest of companies and the interest of the public. so, i

mr. gruberg, does that conclude your suggestions, those four? >>> yes. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> [speaker not understood] zamud followed by peter jacobs. those are the last two people who turned in speaker cards. >> good afternoon, mr. zamud. >>> good afternoon. a couple times couple years ago when taxi drivers have to go for their [speaker not understood] renewal and sfmta, and that was the time the protest started from sfmta from the taxi drivers. that was extreme of the wrong thing started by [speaker not understood]. as the time progressed, she continued doing wrong thing and you guys keep rubber stamping. in one of the town hall meetings she mentioned that mr. jewel and others came to talk to her and learn about terminologies about the taxis. why are you voting when you have to go and learn from her and you are unaware what she is doing? so, going further in this issue then you distributed 150 medallions and it was like whose color is black hair and whose color is black in the other company. whose color is brown hair and whose color -- it was a lotte

mr. gruberg. >>> good afternoon, mr. chairman, [speaker not understood], mark gruberg, united taxicab workers. i just want to tell you that we are under siege in the almost 30 years i've been driving a cab, we are now facing -- when i say we, i'm talking about cab drivers, the cab industry, the public and yourselves as regulators. this is the greatest threat we have seen in all this time. and i'm talking about the rides -- the so-called ride sharing services, [speaker not understood] ride sharing services. a couple of these companies lift and side car, using people's private vehicles providing services indistinguishable from taxi service. we're watching this happen before our eyes. we brought this up, many of us drivers at town hall meetings, asked that something be done about it. we were told that, well, we're going to go after these people. but we need to make sure all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed and so forth. while those i's are being dotted and t's being crossed, the state has stepped in, the cpuc has s

mr. gruberg who made the comment on behalf of green cab. the intent was absolutely to look at the performance of the cab companies and to send the ability to provide the service to those who have a demonstrated performance in doing so. so, the legislation does specify that as a way to do that. i don't think it precludes the consideration of other factors. and it's something that i don't know that we had contemplated so much, but we can certainly explore how we would deal with the situation where a cab company that has no performance history might be able to access the program and maybe there's a way that we can do that. i think it does tie back to your previous comment on the need for good defensible understandable transparent standards. we a towedthv do -- attempted to do that with the 150 permits we issued. i disagree with the characterization, but i think that process could have been a lot better and tighter and we'll certainly aim to do that as we develop the standard, as we vet the standards, share them with you for the ramp medallion

mr. [speaker not understood]. next speaker. >> correspond i lam followed by [speaker not understood] and mark gruberg. >> hello. >>> good afternoon, directors. i've spoken previously and other meetingsing, i was a ramp taxi driver. i do work at night, so, the majority of my rides are usually not folks in wheelchairs. they're people who are out drinking and whatnot. my concern with the ramp program has to do with people using the medallion just to go to the airport and take what doesn't fit in a prius or an escape. i've had that concern for sometime now. i've addressed that with sfo people on how to handle that. what's happening is now that we have the 8,000 series and these other vehicles that are being added and i believe you're probably going to see another spike in hybrid medallions, but you do need incentivized drivers who don't have a medallion down the road for them to still service that very important community. i've given a suggestion previously, and i'm going to bring it again to you. you need to work with the para transit coordinating council and the broker to subsidize the time and gas that is aped expended by the driv