[B]URLINGTON — The City Council approved a new taxi ordinance Tuesday that’s intended to streamline oversight and address the arrival of app-based ride-hailing services like Uber.
There was heated debate over a provision in the ordinance allowing companies to perform their own driver background checks. Uber lobbied heavily for the provision and said if it were dropped the company likely would pull out of Burlington. Uber prevailed.
The new ordinance also allows companies to do their own vehicle inspections. Full text of the ordinance can be found here.
The background check debate pitted the mayor and several city councilors against City Council President Jane Knodell, P-Central District, and a minority of councilors who argued that the only way to be certain background checks are done properly is for the city to conduct them.
Knodell said ensuring public safety is a basic responsibility of city government and that the council shouldn’t cede it to a company that openly violated the current ordinance for months when it arrived in 2014 before reaching a temporary agreement with the city this summer.
Mayor Miro Weinberger and other councilors said allowing Uber to do its own background checks won’t threaten public safety and that such a “narrow concern” is outweighed by the benefits the company brings.
Weinberger said having more transportation options, in the form of Uber and potentially other similar services, improves public safety by getting drunken drivers off the road, makes a car-free lifestyle more tenable and cements Burlington’s reputation as a tech-friendly city.
The mayor and other supporters said taxi regulations have long needed an overhaul and that the new ordinance streamlines the licensing process by bringing it under the authority of City Hall and creating a taxi administrator position. It also creates a vehicle-for-hire enforcement officer to help ensure compliance.
The new ordinance requires companies doing their own background checks to use an accredited third-party vendor and allows the city to audit for compliance two times in a year, Weinberger added.
“The city sets the standards for what the background check is … so it is very likely that if something is missed by Uber in the system we’re creating it would be missed by the city,” Weinberger said.
Knodell said the ordinance “kicks the can down the road” on crucial points, including setting a fee schedule for licenses and spelling out how audits will be conducted. The ordinance says only that the city will reach audit agreements with companies wishing to perform their own background checks.
Councilor Max Tracy, P-Ward 2, who introduced an amendment requiring the city to perform all background checks, said it will be impossible to reach an agreement with Uber that will satisfy the city’s responsibility to ensure public safety.
The company refuses to disclose how many drivers operate in the city, Tracy said, so regulators won’t know if the sampling of background checks that get audited is representative of how many Uber drivers are on the road.
“There’s nothing to say that Uber can’t have a stock set of 25 clean background checks” it submits to the city, Tracy said.
He highlighted concerns about Uber’s background check policies in Texas and California. Prosecutors in Los Angeles and San Francisco are suing Uber, alleging that it lied to consumers about the strength of its background check system.
Tracy’s amendment failed by a vote of 7-5, and the ordinance was later passed by a vote of 9-3. Knodell, Tracy and Selene Colburn, P-East District, voted against it.
Colburn described Uber as “billionaire corporate bullies” that have made a habit of pressuring local regulators into giving the company what it wants.
Weinberger responded that councilors could “call it bullying,” but in his opinion Uber has been consistent and forthright about its position on background checks and other issues. Uber has dropped out of markets that insisted on city-run background checks, he said.
Cathy Zhou, a regional general manager for Uber, said that among roughly 70 jurisdictions that regulate what she called “ride-sharing” services, all of them have rejected city-run background checks. That’s because many of Uber’s “driver partners” work part time and a city-run background check process would be too onerous for them, she said.
The term “ride sharing” is crucial, because in places like New York City, where the municipal Taxi and Limousine Commission conducts background checks, Uber operates as a vehicle-for-hire company and its drivers use licensed taxis, not their personal vehicles as they do in Burlington.
The company contends that it’s offering a different service in Burlington, one that would be unworkable if the city were to conduct the background checks.
Tuesday’s City Council meeting was packed with Uber drivers. During the public comment period they gushed about how much they enjoy driving for Uber. None had a bad word to say about the company.
Uber sent numerous text alerts to its drivers urging them to attend the meeting and “show their support” for Uber, according to a driver who showed VTDigger one of the texts. The messages promised free T-shirts for those who showed up — a promise Zhou and her colleagues made good on.
Many Uber drivers affirmed that they drive for Uber on a part-time basis to supplement their other income. Among them was Matt Fidler, who said he works another full-time job and is driving for Uber to save money to attend college. Jill St. Thomas-Benoit said she’s a foster parent who drives part time for extra money.
Even among Uber drivers who said they drive for the company full time as their only source of income, virtually all were enthusiastic supporters. Orhan Kekic said he drove a taxi for nine years as a self-employed operator. He said he prefers working for Uber.
Kekic and other drivers said Uber has drawn in a huge number of new customers, many of whom tell the drivers they prefer Uber because its mobile app is easy to use and rides are more consistently on time.
Kekic said he makes roughly $900 more each month driving for Uber than he did when he drove a taxi. When Uber reduced its rates for drivers in December, he said, he lost only $100 a month. He and other drivers said they weren’t bothered by that reduction.
Kekic and another former taxi driver both said it takes more fares to make Uber a better deal for drivers than a taxi, but Kekic said there are more customers available through Uber. Driving a cab, he would spend far more time waiting for a fare to come in, he said.
Kekic said he’s aware of efforts to unionize Uber drivers in places like New York City. In Burlington, it’s been years since taxi drivers discussed unionizing, and the previous efforts fell apart because drivers were only out for themselves, according to Kekic.
For now, there’s little interest in organizing among the half-dozen Uber drivers VTDigger interviewed. The influx of new customers is enough to keep everyone happy, they said.
Kekic dismissed the possibility that fares could become more scarce if Uber signs up too many drivers. “Why would they do that?” he asked.
