Council to establish cab operator criteria
The El Dorado City Council is going to have to establish a set of criteria in order for the El Dorado Police Department to conduct background checks for people who are looking to operate taxi cab services in the city.
In June, the council agreed to defer to the EPD after Mayor Veronica Smith-Creer said she had received questions and concerns about amendments that were approved last year for city ordinances that regulate the operation of taxi cab services within city limits.
A new city ordinance — 1883 — that was approved July 23, 2020, repealed and consolidated several taxi ordinances that had been adopted over the years.
Smith-Creer homed in on requirements that must be met to operate taxi cab services in El Dorado, particularly one that calls for operators to maintain a current background check that is conducted by the EPD.
“Who decides if you pass or fail? What’s the criteria? Can that prevent someone from getting an occupation license and if so, for how long?” the mayor asked in June.
She also pointed out then that all taxis must be presented to the city for inspection, per the city ordinance, noting that vehicle inspections are no longer required by the state.
Council Member Paul Choate, who proposed the ordinance amendments in 2020, later explained that the purpose of the revisions
was to ensure passenger safety and that taxis are mechanically sound and functioning properly.
During a regular council meeting July 8, Police Chief Kenny Hickman told council members that the process by which the EPD checks criminal and driving records is “strictly regulated.”
“Moving forward and for us to be of best service to the council, I just want to be clear that I can’t come back and say, ‘Well, he’s got four tickets and a misdemeanor charge and was found guilty five years ago,’” Hickman said.
“I can’t do that. I can’t tell you any of that. It’s illegal,” he continued.
Hickman explained that the EPD can check criminal and driving backgrounds, compare their findings to criteria that are set by the council and “just return a pass or did not.”
“We’d be happy to do that and I think we’re probably the one that’s best, naturally, to do the background checks and stuff in a situation like that but it’s best we have a criteria set beforehand so we’ll know how to return to you with a yay or a nay with regard to passing that,” Hickman said.
Smith-Creer referred to previous discussions and debates about whether background checks were necessary and how they would be prioritized against driving records in the process of securing a city occupation license to start a taxi service.
“That’s something that y’all would have to decide and we can do both of those and check them against, basically, a litmus test, or a plumb line,” Hickman said.
Smith-Creer asked council members to move forward with setting criteria to pass on to the EPD.
“My suggestion was if the background check is going to be on there, if it was going to be the determining factor in the ordinance, it should be the first thing that happens because if it was going to keep someone from getting it, you don’t want to have them getting insurance and doing all the other inspections if the background check was going to keep them from moving forward,” SmithCreer said.
City Attorney Henry Kinslow suggested that he and Hickman take a more in-depth look into the matter, review legalities, as they pertain to standards the EPD has to follow, and check similar ordinances of other cities to craft an ordinance that is tailored for El Dorado.
Hickman said the EPD had obtained a couple of similar ordinances from other cities, saying that one was “extensive.”
When Kinslow asked Hickman to provide copies of the ordinance, Hickman replied, “Well, extensive, I mean a paragraph or two of ‘you can’t do this, you can’t do this, you can’t do that.’”
He told Kinslow that the EPD would compile other examples and forward them to Kinslow’s office.
Council Member Andre Rucks agreed with Kinslow, saying, “I’d rather have both, the lighter one and the extensive one because, me personally, just knowing history, we’re not going to sugarcoat things, chief, because some people have used background checks to discriminate against individuals.”
“I want to make sure that we kind of meet somewhere in the middle. Extreme is what this country is about and I want to make sure we have one that’s tailor-made for El Dorado, Arkansas,” Rucks added.
He also asked SmithCreer if a prospective operator was waiting for the council to resolve the matter before pursuing a city occupation license.
“No, we don’t have anyone waiting, but it was a question before,” she responded.
Hickman said the background-check process will involve some “subjectivity, even though you have an objective standard.”
In researching the matter, Choate said the most extensive taxi ordinance he found was adopted in Fayetteville.
He reiterated that his primary concern is public safety and “if someone has a felony background with crimes against person.”
“I was thinking about many, many times, you put someone that may be in an altered state in a taxi cab with somebody they do not know and you know, as a licensing agency, the city, we need to do our due diligence and just protect as best we can,” said Choate.
“I know there are a lot of good people out there that have made mistakes in their youth and have gone past that and I’m not trying to penalize anybody like that,” he continued. “But the same thing is that someone who has a somewhat violent past or certain crimes and may end up on a register … just safety’s sake.”
Rucks made a similar statement, saying that he wanted to ensure that prospective taxi service operators are “penalized for something that did 20 years ago.”
“That’s what I just said, sir,” Choate said.
“But you didn’t put a time limit on it,” Rucks replied.