By Tim Redmond
One of the tricky ways Mayor Gavin Newsom is going to try to pretend to balance the city budget is by selling off taxi medallions, the permits needed to operate a cab in the city. And the drivers, with the help of Sup. Eric Mar, are organizing to fight back.
Mar, the Asian Law Caucus, the United Taxi Workers and others will hold a demonstration tomorrow, Tuesday May 21, on the steps of City Hall to denounce the plan. This is going to be an epic battle — the mayor sees the permits as a source of tens of millions of dollars, and drivers and their advocates say a public resource is being put on the auction block — and that ordinary drivers will get screwed.
I’m glad to see that Mar is taking this on — cab-industry politics is complicated and often rough, and the anti-privatization folks in the cab industry need an ally at City Hall.