i am ed riskin director of transportation. a position that was established by the voters of san francisco with prop e in 1999 which put together the transportation functions of the city, transit, bicycle, traffic and pedestrian, and recognition that the transportation system is an integrated system, and one that can't be managed by individual decision makers or bodies, so when the voters put together the mta, first in 99 and again in 2007, it was with the intent and the mandate for the mta to manage the system in a comprehensive way, and for the board of directors to have the authority to make consistent and integrated decisions that balanced the different transportation needs of the whole system. for the example that's the subject of this appeal this was a decision by the mta board with regard to the criteria for a set of permits that the number of permentds, how they would be issued. it's a policy decision of the board that is part of an interrelated set of policy decisions and not just about taxis but the rest of the transp

basically i guess director ed riskin was saying it was too complicated for the average person to understand. i guess the congress could make the same argument to the supreme court. it's too complicated for you to understand so you should let us just make policy. this has to be looked at again, and once again this is no benefits. mr. wiener has no idea what goes on in the cab business. okay. no benefits to the cab business whatsoever and experienced drivers are going to quit. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> good evening board members. first i would like to thank you for hearing this case. i filed i wanted to file an appeal but somebody said i couldn't, so on this matter, and thank you for giving us three minutes. that's something the mta has never done and something they have never done also to give drivers hope. you know where is scott wiener? he just left. this was his first time here and he spoke and left. i remember my first cab ride. i was about nine years old. it was to the hospital. i was a burn victim and my mother called for a cab. i'm a 24 year driver and san franc

ed riskin argues that the transportation system is one thing and part of the entire transportation system. however, muni or mta pays for the buses, the vehicles. they pay the drivers. they don't pay cab drivers or buy the vehicles or insurance. cab drivers are doing this work for very little money, and unfortunately the criteria has been what is going to make the sf mta the most money. they could have issued these 150-200 medallions a year ago but they wanted to see how to make money off of it. they could be issued to these drivers and instead they lease them to companies and these are medallions that won't go on the road. none of this $14 million a year they intend to get is going back into cracking on illegal taxi operations that are picking up the public, limos -- you know doormen are putting people into strange town cars that don't have commercial license plates. there's no -- not enough inspectors to crack down on this and none of the millions of dollars is going toward this. we pay to regulate this. this is more than regulation. this is profiteering off of the industry. they are reg

they were published and in addition to that director riskin has implemented a policy that we are struggling to get in front of and anytime we have a legislative change we want to publish it for the industry 30 days in advance so they have time to look at the legislation and have conversations how the proposals should change. it's not perfect but we have very much endeavoring to make better routes of communication between the industry and the agency. >> thank you. i have no further questions. >> so are we going to redeliberate then because we have heard new testimony? what is the appropriate process? >> it's up to the members of the board. if they care to speak again there is no pending motion on the floor so a motion needs to be made. >> oh there is no motion? okay. >> i have a couple of comments. >> go ahead. >> just to be clear and perhaps if it wasn't involved in my discussions at the previous hearing, you know, what is before us is a fairly narrow issue versus all the things that we heard from both sides. we're not hearing the case before us, and until we've had the verbal testimony i k