Columnist Jeff German: Taxicab Authority has lost it

Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2005 | 11:07 a.m.

When the heat is on, what would you expect the do-nothing state Taxicab Authority Board to do?

Nothing, of course.

That's what the five-member board did Tuesday.

Having dug a mess so deep for itself through its inept handling of a regulation ordering cameras in cabs, the board decided Tuesday that the best way out of the mess was to take no action.

Don't try to figure out the board's logic here. I don't think the board even understands it.

But once again it looks like the wrong call was made. What the board did was create an even bigger mess for itself and the taxicab industry.

Two weeks ago an interim legislative committee instructed the board to revise its regulation and exclude cameras with sound. The committee was concerned that the use of sound had potential to invade the privacy of drivers and passengers.

Revising the regulation would have set back efforts to install cameras in cabs throughout the industry by several weeks. More public meetings would have had to be held, and the legislative committee would have had to approve the new version.

Drawing up the new regulation, however, would have been simple. It was only a matter of changing a few words.

But that was too simple of a task for this board.

At the urging of the wealthy cab companies, several of which are still fighting cameras, the board voted unanimously Tuesday to go over the interim committee's head and seek guidance from the entire Legislature, which convenes Feb. 7.

I've got news for the board. It doesn't need legislative intervention to get itself out of this mess. It needs divine intervention.

Now that it has asked the entire Legislature to step in, anything can happen, including the possibility that mandatory cameras in cabs will be killed all together. Some companies already have hired high-powered lobbyists to try to make that happen.

With Tuesday's do-nothing vote, the Taxicab Authority Board has committed the ultimate sin of any regulatory body. It has lost control of the industry it's supposed to be regulating.

Today, there is no certainty that every cabbie in this valley will have a camera in his vehicle that will both protect his privacy and deter acts of violence against him.

This is the predicament now facing the board:

On the one hand some companies are pressing ahead with plans to install cameras with sound, despite the objections of the legislative committee. Whittlesea Blue-Henderson Cab boss Brent Bell told the board Tuesday that he hopes to have cameras in all 365 of his cabs by March 1.

On the other hand companies led by Ace-Union Cab owner Charlie Frias have retained Guinn adviser Sig Rogich and former state Sen. Mark James to persuade the Legislature that cameras may not even be needed in cabs.

It is an industry in disarray -- and the board that's supposed to be regulating it is doing nothing to bring it back to order.