Cabbies push for meters
EL CENTRO — A coalition of El Centro cab companies on Tuesday asked the City Council to consider drafting and approving an ordinance that would authorize the use of meters by licensed taxi drivers.
The request comes in response to the coalition’s dissatisfaction with the council’s recent vote authorizing the increase of the intra-city fare from $5.50 to $6, less than the $7.50 fare the coalition had initially requested.
The coalition’s request for the meters’ adoption was also prompted by one local company’s vow to continue to charge the lesser fare as a sign of solidarity with its predominantly low-income clientele, said Froilan Medina, an owner-operator with American Taxi Care.
Were any cab companies to charge the council-approved $6 intra-city fee, they would likely lose their clientele to Yellow Cab Co., which remains committed to solely charging $5 for fares within the city’s limits, Medina said.
“(Meters) are the progress of the future,” Medina told the council during its regular meeting Tuesday. “If you want to take six months to think about, go ahead.”
Although members of the City Council did not indicate any immediate approval or disproval of a meter system, they did ask City Attorney Betsy Martyn about the feasibility of the proposal, as well as whether such an ordinance’s implementation would be discretionary or mandatory for cab companies.
Any ordinance the council were to adopt regulating the taxis’ meters would need to have provisions regulating their usage, as well as whether they would be discretionary or mandatory, Martyn said.
Council also indicated a workshop would be scheduled with representatives of the local cab companies in the near future to further consider the proposal, as well as to discuss changes to state laws governing taxi and ride-sharing companies that are set to be implemented at the start of 2019.
“The good news is that we can work collaboratively with the cab companies,” Mayor Cheryl Viegas-Walker said.
The council had held a public hearing on Tuesday to reconsider its Aug. 7 vote authorizing the increase of the intra-city rate from $5.50 to $6, and increasing from $12 to $20 the total amount that taxis can charge within an hour for waiting on a fare.
Its reconsideration on Tuesday of its Aug. 7 vote was also prompted by a letter the coalition had sent to city officials on Aug. 13 expressing disappointment with the council’s 50-cent increase in the taxi rate.
That letter, which was signed by representatives of the Yellow Cab, American Taxi Care, Blue Cab, El Centro, City Cab, IV Taxi and Johnny Cab companies, had gone so far as to state the council had left them feeling “mocked, disrespected, even cheated, looked down upon and discriminated.”
On Tuesday, Councilman Efrain Silva took the opportunity to question the taxi drivers in attendance about the letter’s strongly worded allegations in the hopes of addressing the issue.
Medina acknowledged that his signature appeared on the letter, but that he didn’t write it and felt no such animosity toward the council on Tuesday.
Similarly, Yellow Cab Co. co-owner Mario Bustamante Jr. told Silva that he and his co-owners and workers did not become aware of the content of the letter until after it had been submitted to the city by Jorge Garcia of Blue Cab.
Bustamante had explained to the council that his company did not feel comfortable charging its clientele the $6 fee on account of their clientele consisting mostly of low-income workers who often have no other transportation options.
“The customers that we have cannot afford to pay any more,” Bustamante said. “If we raise it, all we’re going to do is lose a lot of more customers.”
The last time taxi rates were increased in El Centro was in 2009. That increase had been approved in light of increases in gas prices and the federal minimum wage, council agenda back-up documents stated.
Since 2009, there has been a 52 percent increase in gas prices, and the federal minimum had gone from $8 to $10.50.
On Tuesday, the council ultimately did not move to make any changes to the rate increases it had approved on Aug. 7.