At 04:54 PM 7/21/04 -0700, you wrote:

On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 11:06:28PM -0700, Chris Finn wrote:

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Under section A4 (local vehicle registration fee), while the various components are listed to make this possible, I would suggest stating clearly that one of the intentions would be to ensure this wouldn't be a regressive tax, since some poorer people might have older less fuel-efficient vehicles.

Agreed... I'll bring revised language tonight.

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Under section D.1.ii "License a fleet of privately owned medallion vehicles whose owners would pay a concession fee to the City. " Can you clarify this more - there have been concerns expressed about this throughout the City regarding the possibility of auctioning off medallions. Who gets the licenses, who gets the medallions? How would this be an improvement to the existing system? This might just need more articulation.

Can you suggest alternative language? I think the WG's intent is not to try to address flaws in the current medallion system (as this is more than we want to get into), but to bring drivers into city health care, retirement, etc.

It's not really clear what this is proposing. The way it's written, with the preamble, makes it sound as a proposal for change from what exists now. I know there has also been some talk - by Newsom I believe - about changing it in a way that could fit with this proposed language. I'm not sure of the exact proposal being discussed at City levels, but I think it had to do with being able to transfer medallions and therefore open them up to further privatization. If this paragraph isn't proposing something new, we don't need to add it into our plank. If it is, we should just clarify what it means. At this point, I would suggest dropping section ii and sticking with the explanation that we want to create a method for drivers to have city health care, benefits, etc. I think it's fine to put in our plank what we would ideally like to see. If we don't have a specific alternative to the existing system, we could simply add a point that states what you did above: "Create a plan whereby City taxi drivers are entitled to City benefits such as health care, retirement, etc."

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We also might want to add something under the taxi section regarding the election of a representative Taxi Commission.

This one hasn't really been vetted; if you can come up with suggested language, I could poll people on it tonight. If it isn't a big deal, I'd rather save new items like this for future revisions.

I think we could raise it tonight without it being very controversial - maybe with simple language calling for the Taxi Commission to be elected rather than appointed. As it stands now, the commission is appointed by the mayor (Guess where Gavin got his start - the Taxi Commission). I think we could easily raise the call for an elected commission without getting too deep into discussing whether it should be by District, half appointment - half elected, etc. Chris

JMC -- John-Marc Chandonia (jmc@sfgreens.org) http://www.dolorespark.org/