Wolfgang wrote:
The City has demonstrated "reckless negligence" but they, the elected officials and their political appointees don't need to worry about being held accountable for their behavior -- not by cab drivers, not by cab driver's organizations and perhaps not even by the courts.
In the last twelve months Chicago cab drivers have petitioned the city, demonstrated they could all take a day off at the same time (the one-day cab driver strike last July) and petitioned, again, for a meter rate adjustment so cab drivers could keep up with not just the cost of living, but also with unheard-of, unrelenting gas price increases which continue to reduce their take home earnings more every day.
But instead of enacting a much-needed meter increase -- after a year-long delay -- the City enacted a $1 per trip gas surcharge, reduced some suburban rates, tripled minimum fines, increased the maximum fines to $1,000, authorized broader DCS policy powers unequalled outside of a court, and deftly delayed a meter rate adjustment hearing until 2009 which could mean no meter increase until 2010. No one is really sure how this helps the cab drivers, if at all.
Elected Chicago officials and their appointees can be as reckless as they wish, and with no fear of even the tiniest of sanctions when it comes to taxi drivers and owners.
The City has, again, failed to address that Alderman Allen (in early June 2007) incorrectly gambled that the gas prices were just doing their usual summer-time spike. They weren't. History has proven Alderman Allen wrong.
History has proven Alderman Allen, the Transportation Committee, The City Council and the Mayor wrong. Gas prizes alone have proven Alderman Allen, the Transportation Committee, The City Council and the Mayor wrong.
Alderman Allen, the Transportation Committee, the City Council and the Mayor had been properly notified and warned in 2007 and in 2008 -- all the economic indicators and oil industry indicators suggested heralded and foretold continually increasing gas prices. The latest industry predictions call for gas prices "topping off" at $7 per gallon in the next eighteen to twenty four months.
These are the same people that predicted $2.75 per gallon gas and $3.75 per gallon gas and $4.50 per gallon gas and $5 per gallon gas and now $7 per gallon gas.
Elected Chicago officials and their appointees can be as reckless as they wish, and with no fear of even the tiniest of sanctions when it comes to taxi drivers and owners.
No one in Chicago City Government or the cab companies has have offered a solution to the problem except one, 303 Taxi (operates as Flash Cab in Chicago), whose owners boldly and bravely took the lead and negotiated a hefty and appropriate meter in increase for their drivers in Arlington Heights.
Bravo, ladies and gentlemen of 303 Taxi and Arlington Heights! Booo on you bums in Chicago City Hall!
Are Chicago’s elected officials and their political appointees who are in charge of the cab industry immune from taking responsibility for the damage they have caused hard-working cab drivers and their families by their bad and wrong decisions?
If the answer is "yes" the concept of "justice for all" has suffered another wound -- at the hands of Alderman Allen, the Transportation Committee, The City Council and the Mayor of the greatest city on earth!
This behavior -- knowing the truth and acting as if it did not exist -- should be flagrantly illegal, but it doesn't appear that anyone in City Hall will be punished -- the most grossly guilty parties continue to conduct City Hall business as usual, which includes Alderman Allen, the Transportation Committee, the City Council and the Mayor.
This shameful business of delaying a meter rate increase offers Mayor Daley an opportunity to restore some of his tarnished reputation of an unfair, cold-hearted taxi driver hater and taxi business dictator of Chicago.
He ought to denounce this lack of action on behalf of hard-working cab drivers loudly, and make it clear that he will seek to ensure that those who subverted Justice in this great city -- and turned the cab industry into a seemingly bottomless well of fresh daily revenue at the expense of cab drivers and owners -- will have to face real consequences.
The Mayor ought to call an emergency session of the City Council and demand they pass a taxi meter rate increase of not less the 25% - effective immediately and as quickly as the meters can be properly adjusted.
