Melissa, Couldn't have said it better myself. We are on the same page here. Great response.
Mike was highly critical of the Mike Foulks labeled "Shen Seven" or "Magnificant Seven" He felt that they were cheating the rest of us by filing the suit. George felt that it should have gone through him first. I could post the quotes, but why bother. We all need to be able to work together. Lets try. Sure we might not always see eye to eye or even like the other. I have met Wolfgang Weiss and Stanley Shen of the Mag Seven. I have met Peter Enger. I even met Mike Foulks years ago when he was a newbie. I was/am able to communicate with all of them with the exception of Mike. He just doesn't realize that spitting venom drives people away. While not everyone can be positive all the time, who wants to meet with someone that bombs his fellow driver with insults.
Some of the previous organizers did some good and some bad. Steve Wiedersberg got a law passed to help protect us. He also gave a former commisioner a valentine. It was a chocolate heart box filled with some kind of foul thing. He made sure it was in the news. It made taxi drivers look like the bad people. I am worried that Mike will make the same impression on the general public someday. Screaming and yelling at city hall doesn't help.
A lawsuit does seem like the proper way to get someones attention. I do not know the answer to this for sure, but can almost guarantee that many lawsuits end up with an out of court settlement. Don Nathan might know the percentage of all suits never reaching a court decided verdict. I would bet that the parties involved in the lawsuit would like nothing better than a review of the rates and to have new fair rates established so we don't end up working day and night for free. Isn't this what everyone wants?
Ahmed said, "George felt that it should have gone through him first."
Actually Ahmed, what I said was that I thought it should go through us first. You know that.
George Lutfallah
Chicago Dispatcher
I think you're right George with the us being the Dispatcher.
I'm not with the Dispatcher but I'm glad I got the chance to get my two cents in about the lawsuit. I'm also thankful to George for putting up this forum to give me and you the chance to say so. No disrespect to Mr. Nathan but a lot of us saw the problems with the way the petition was written. I don't see where you objected to anything at all, even though even to Mr. Nathan it should have been written better. You are critical of Mike Foulks and never say a good word about him and you are always positive to the UTCC and Mr. Nathan's people and are never critical of them. I think there is a lot you aren't telling the rest of us about yourself.
Nathan says he amending the petition. The city has so far ignored the lawsuit according to him. He's working for free. What more do you want? I don't expect him to be a magician like Johnny Cochran. If you or anyone else can get a 63 year old attorney to work for free for us please post his info.
I have said good things about Mike, read my posts. He did do a good job of writing a response letter to the Tribune. The original letter writer was a fool. This writer thinks we should work for free and take his abuse at the same time.
Now for something you don't want to hear, Peter Enger did point out the the complaint per ride ratio is almost zero. Not like the bogus numbers it was purported to be on the TV news. The news people got the "story" directly from the DCS. Am I missing something here? I do not belive I saw a correction in the Dispatcher, but will be happy if I did indeed miss it.
If George does his thing and Enger and Co. does theirs perhaps the industry can benefit. My respect for the UTCC and Nathan comes from the fact they are not afraid to take the "gloves" off. A city license holder would be a fool to take his/hers off unless the cause/case was a so called slam dunk. I do know for a fact the the city gets much more than the fair share of legal decisions to go their way in Cook County courts. They are a vindictive bunch.
