Christmas could come early for the operators of so-called “ride sharing” services 
like Uber and Lyft — if Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez gets his way.
As part of a plan to institute some regulations that will make them legal, Carlos “Mr. Giveaway” Gimenez wants to forgive $1.4 million in fines that the companies have amassed since they started to operate in the county illegally in the Spring of 2014.
He’s always so generous with our money, ain’t he?
It’s part of a larger plan the mayor has to bring Uber into the law-abiding fold. It wouldn’t require much more. Taxicabs will get less regulation and must install some sort of app based call service. But Uber and Lyft still get to set whatever rates they want — changing rates for peak times and routes — and they still get to hire whoever they want, doing their own background and providing their own insurance.
Read related story: Double standard: Miami-Dade lets Lyft, Uber run over rules
The companies would pay a little more than half of the $3.2 million in fines and citations (about $1.8 million) and start paying $2.50 to pick up passengers at the airport. And, voila, just like that, they’d be legal. Never mind the questions about whether or not their drivers are safe and whether or not their insurance is sufficient, as Lyft faces a lawsuit after an fatal accident with a motorcyclist. Never mind how this might affect low-income residents or people without credit cards as the taxi industry is decimated. Never mind questions about the rights of taxi medallion holders who may sue for hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars.
Mayor Giveaway — who never met a discount for millionaires he didn’t like — has been hell bent on legalizing Uber by the end of the year. But there has been no public process for the development of his proposed plan. There has been no workshop, as promised earlier this year. A May workshop was cancelled citing a conflict in schedule, and Monestime
had said through his then Chief of Staff Gerard Phillipeaux, that he was going to wait til after the budget process, in October.
“This is clearly a non-democratic process and the Mayor Carlos Gimenez, in my opinion, has beome the Fidel Castro of the Miami-Dade County by his adoption of ‘my way or highway’ policies,” wrote Akhtar Kamal, in an email to other drivers and cab owners after last month’s Taxicab Advisory Group meeting, which he called a joke.
Now, near the end of November, there is still no workshop and it looks like there will never be since we already have a draft of a Gimenez plan that basically gives Uber and Lyft everything they want on their Santa list. The mayor can’t present legislation, and the chairman is dragging his feet on it, so it may be presented as the conditions of a legal settlement with Uber, said Gimenez spokesman Michael Hernandez.
So, if they’re getting everything they want, basically, why do we have to forgive them any legal fines they received while they snubbed their nose at the law? These same companies paid all their citations in Broward as they were legalized there. Why do we have to be so much more magnanimous?
The mayor’s spokesman and the county’s transportation director both say that a lawsuit challenging the fines could cost the county hundreds of thousands to pursue. Uber and Lyft have said they don’t need to be regulated because they do not fall under the same “fo
r-hire passenger” vehicle as taxis. They are “ride sharing” services and/or “technological companies” because they use an app.
Puh-leeeze! Who do they think they are kidding? That’s in name only. Uber is just starting to roll out its ride sharing program now. Nobody I know who has taken an Uber has had to share the ride with another passenger. In fact, it shows that Uber is so comfortable operating illegally under Gimenez that they had already announced a new service, UberPool, where passengers can share a ride with someone going in the same direction for a reduced cost.
That’s illegal squared. And it’s a different service than what they were offering before.
And here’s the other thing: We know they should have gotten more fines. Enforcement was slack. And knowing that they were going to be made legal soon, it was getting slacker. County compliance officers have been easing the pressure on Uber and Lyft in recent months.
Only 38 citations were issued in August, for example, compared with 277 issued in May, and 151 in April, and 105 in March. The lowest month before August was February, with 94.
So, really, $3.2 million is already a discount.
One has to wonder if this wasn’t the Mayor Giveaway’s plan all along. He always seemed so very calm and collected about the whole controversy with the taxi industry, which rightfully feels ripped off. Not only have they had to deal with and pay the financial costs of regulation for, like, forever, but they also had to buy the limited right to drive a cab with medallions that are worth up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Or were, as now they are worth nothing.
Read related story: Miami-Dade should give medallion money back to cabbies
Talk about buyer’s remorse. You can be sure there will be a lawsuit or several.
But, seriously,
can’t you just imagine those private conversations where Gimenez tells his lobbyist friends — Brian May and Sylvester Lukis, among others, for Uber and Jorge Luis Lopez for Lyft — to keep operating and not to worry about those pesky citations because (wink, wink) we’ll work something out.
Some commissioners — Barbara Jordan, Dennis Moss and Chairman and one-time cabbie Jean Monestime — smell this, too. They aren’t so sure about the compromise or the giveaway. After all, Uber’s net value is estimated at $50 billion or so. Monestime has not moved on the draft legislation because, sources say, he wants to drum up more opposition to any giveaway.
But even they admit that something will happen to bring Uber into the legal world. The tide is just there.
Michael Hernandez, the mayor’s spokesman, said “it’s a winning issue,” which means it will help him in his re-election next year to say that he legalized Uber and Lyft.
After all,it polled well in that Bendixen & Amandi poll done for The Miami Herald in July, in which 70% of the respondents wanted Uber to be legalized. And you know Gimenez governs by poll.
And that is fine and dandy: After all, give the people what they want.
But Ladra doubts that includes forgiving the fines that these companies accumulated in the last year or so as outlaws.
Carlos Gimenez moves to legalize Uber, pardon penalties added by Ladra on
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[…] Carlos Gimenez moves to legalize Uber, pardon penalties November 24, 2015 […]
Dear Sacred Political Cortadito Readers:
I drove a taxicab full-time for 23 years. I have driven for Uber for almost 15 months, and for Lyft some 5 months.
I swear to you, under penalties for perjury, that in my experience, Uber & Lyft are 5 times better than taxicabs, for 1/2 the price!
Taxicabs have strangely had a monopoly on ‘for-hire ground passenger transportation’ from the beginning, but with absolutely no justification for the existence of this monopoly system, which is also strangely nationwide, and worldwide.
The taxi monopoly system has, in my opinion, proved the adage, ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’.
The most poignant examples?
1. Passengers routinely tell me taxicabs have failed to show up, and caused them to miss their airplanes taking off at Miami International Airport.
2. Passengers complain about taxicab mistreatment in the 1000’s, every year, to the County Transportation Regulators, with the two most common, and egregious, complaints, being:
2A. Rip-offs by taxi drivers deliberately going the wrong way to run up the fare (then sometimes threatening the passenger with the police and arrest for ‘theft of services’ if they don’t pay the fraudulently inflated price)
2B. Refusal of service. This is a pervasive, insidious, practice, primarily committed by Haitian drivers — per County Regulatory statistics. Whether it be a tourist at the Airport or Seaport seeking to go a relatively short distance, or tourists or workers on Miami Beach, in Coral Gables, or literally everywhere throughout the County, taxi drivers very, very frequently lie to passengers, or simply become arrogant and outrightly refuse to transport them, because the fare is not lucrative enough for the lazy, and arrogant, taxi driver.
3. Taxi industry leaders are arguably corrupt, as are many taxi medallion owners.
I pleaded, for years, with the local taxi industries two highest leaders:
A. Diego Feliciano, of the Southeast Florida Taxicab Association, who, although he had a duty as a Member of the County Taxicab Advisory Group to talk with me, as a former taxi driver, told me he was “too busy” to talk with me about deplorable taxicab customer service.
I asked him how long it has been since he drove a taxicab, even for 1 shift. He told me he has not driven a taxicab since 1983.
I implored him to drive at least 1-3 single 12-hour shifts, and he refused. Yet he continually holds himself out as THE TAXI INDUSTRY EXPERT, on television and to the Miami-Dade County Commission.
I know from experience that he is regularly dishonest in his statements to the media and thereby to the public, and in his statements to the Miami-Dade County Commission.
B. Les Eisenberg, my former employer at Yellow Cab, is the County’s second leading taxicab authority. He and Diego Feliciano, in my opinion, corrupted taxicab regulation in many ways, specifically including engineering ways to violate County Commission enacted term limits on their service as Members of the County Taxicab Advisory Group, and excluding from membership senior drivers who could have helped clean up the taxi industry.
C. Taxi medallion owners cry foul about their medallions being worth less, but these very people are very frequently profoundly guilty of willful blindness with respect to corruption they were fully aware of for decades, principally the organized theft by drivers against passengers.
THE MIAMI TAXI INDUSTRY, AND TAXI MONOPOLIES THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY AND THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, ARE THEIR OWN WORST ENEMIES.
4. Consider, if you will, the proverbial situation of a passenger — ever happened to you or someone you know? — leaving their cell phone, or their wallet, in a taxicab?
With taxicabs, the recovery rate of misplaced cell phones, wallets, luggage, and what-not, is below 50%.
With Uber and Lyft, the recovery rate for lost items is above 90%, and if drivers are caught stealing from, or otherwise abusing passengers, they are “deactivated”.
5. There is so very much more to say, including the Uber and Lyft Rating system for passenger experience. Feedback of “1 to 5 Stars” to rate every single ride, from passengers, allows Uber and Lyft to continually improve service, weed out bad drivers, and respond to passenger needs. Taxi companies absolutely refuse, as a matter of principal, to try to seriously improve driver customer service.
ON TOP OF THE FOREGOING 5 REASONS UBER AND LYFT GIVE A BETTER PASSENGER EXPERIENCE, THEY COST LITERALLY ONLY HALF AS MUCH AS TAXICABS!!!
Mayor Gimenez is trying desperately to rescue our tourism and “Gateway to Latin America” economy from the genuinely corrupt taxi monopolies in our County.
The poll citing 70% of our residents want Uber and Lyft — and the free market system, applicable to every other business including YOURS, to become applicable to ground transportation, i.e. to END THE TAXI MONOPOLIES — reinforce my almost 25 years of full-time experience.
PLEASE JOIN ME IN SUPPORTING UBER AND LYFT, BY WRITING ADDITIONAL COMMENTS HERE, AND ELSEWHERE.
Very sincerely yours,
Jackson Rip Holmes
http://www.ripholmes.com
4848 SW 135 Place
Miami, FL 33175
P. 305-338-5000
E. [email protected]
This is an insult to All Tax Payers ! USA is a Country of Laws and The Limousine Have been Over Regulated by The CSD for years License ,Insurance ,Driver Hack , and Late Model Cars , NOW Uber could Come Any Age Vehicle and No Regulation and Compete ? This Giveaway by the Mayor is Going to Cost the Tax Payers in LAW Suits*. Elaine is Right in August 38 in Sept. 31 Citations, They said They Don’t Want To Pyle on More Citations . So Continue to break The Law That The Inspectors will look the Other Way , ( Selective Prosecution ) Now The County Employees Are Breaking The Law. We don’t need Inspectors if they Are Not Going To WORK ?
Typically Carlos’s negotiating tactic is to throw it against the wall and see what sticks. IMO The 1/2 price off sale on the fines is a red hearing which he’ll happily lose in the “compromise”
When the deal is done the taxi mouthpiece commissioners on the BCC can claim they stood up to Uber and made them pay the fines.
It is interesting to see the shoe on the other foot. After decades of the taxi industry using it’s money to buy politicians and protection from market forces now Uber is buying more powerful politicians. So what? To quote another blogger,, it’s Miami, Bitches.
What I can’t figure out is how Uber does it..they drive nicer cars than I do.. The other night it was a late model S Benz. $10 for about a 10 mile ride. I am curious if this is Uber’s way of buying the public.. Does the service, nice cars, or quick response time decline once they get permitted?
There is no reason to forgive fines. The County lawyers would win every one of those cases. Is Miss Bravo, the lumbrera hired from Miami, an attorney?
This is just another campaign contribution kickback negotiated with billionaires by the Starstruck Gimenez. You mentioned the money guys who represent Uber and Lyft. Track the contributions. It is probably a dollar for dollar deal.
How can the Mayor compare forgiving a homeowner who is fined for having a home in disrepair to a company who violates the law to steal business from taxis? He thinks he is one of the rich people. Maybe only the rich people will vote for him in August.
Thank you ! Great stotry! God bless you!