Recommendation to receive and file the Biennial Report on Public Convenience and Necessity Regarding Taxicab Service and conclude the hearing; find that the number of authorized taxicabs is insufficient for the needs of the City; find that Long Beach Yellow Cab Cooperative, Inc. (LBYC), is in full compliance with the terms and conditions of the current permit; and authorize City Manager to amend the permit with LBYC to authorize operation of 199 cabs, approve a requested change in trade dress, and allow for discounted fares to ensure the customer base is offered the most competitive pricing.  (Citywide)
And this will be a lot this will be very similar to that. So thank you for everyone, for all the hard work. And with that, we're going to move on to our first hearing. So much for this. Back over to the court. Hearing Item number one report from Financial Management. Recommendation to receive and file the biennial report on public convenience. A necessity regarding taxicab service and conclude the hearing. Find that the number of authorized taxi cabs is insufficient. Find that yellow, that Long Beach Yellow Cab is in full compliance. Amend the permit to authorize operation of 199 cabs. Approver requested change in trade dress and allow for discounted fares to ensure the customer base is offered the most competitive pricing citywide. Think I'm going to turn this over right now to Assistant City Manager Tom Modica, who's going to turn it over to staff. And I think there's also some changes to the proposal. So here's Mr. Modica and. Oath required for this. Yeah. Mr. Modica I would do the oath first please. You and each of you. Do you solemnly state that the testimony you may give in this cause now and pending before this body shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? I do. I do. Thank you, Mr. Motor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of the City Council. The staff report will be given. By Jason MacDonald, our purchasing and business services manager. Thank you, Mayor. Council Members Jason McDonald on behalf of the Business License Division in the Financial Management Department. Tonight you have in front of you the biannual report for public convenience, a necessity regarding taxicab services. Staff has completed its investigation and is recommending that council find the number of cabs should be increased. Approve a change in trade, dress or vehicle logo which was provided to you and allow for discounted fares. We are prepared to address any questions or concerns regarding the item that has provided. Thank you. Thank you. There has been a motion in a second on the item. What I'm going to do is I'm to open up for any any public comments first on this, and then we'll bring it back to the makers of the motion for the official part of the hearing. Any public comment, please come forward. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor and Council. I'm Cheri Beasley. I'm the executive director at the Long Beach Ronald McDonald House. And I appreciate the opportunity to just share with you briefly. Since opening in December of 2011, Long Beach Yellow Cab has been a tremendous supporter for our families. I can tell you that just last year we served approximately 700 families, which equates to about 3000 people. Many of those don't come to our Long Beach Ronald McDonald House with transportation. Since opening, Yellow Cab has been providing taxi script, which means there is transportation for those families without vehicles for much needed. Visits to local businesses to just have some normalcy while they're dealing with the burden of their child in the hospital. Without without the support from Yellow Cab. We do not have the resources to provide transportation for these families. So I hope in your consideration on these items today, you you I urge you to vote yes in favor of them being the great community supporter and support to our Long Beach Ronald McDonald House. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Next Speaker. Mary Garcia. Council Members. City Manager Pat West. Sherrie mentioned about the community outreach that Yellow Cab does, and they're one of the great partners in the community that whenever there's something needed, Yellow Cowboy steps up to the plate. And they always they are always part of the community. And but aside from that, I can't tell you how many visitors have told me and told our staff their great experiences that they had that they've had in the Yellow Cab Taxi. And what's exciting to me is the drivers actually take the time to talk about Long Beach, talk about the changes that are in the city. And they're Long Beach proud. We have salespeople driving those cabs. And I hear it often when the visitors leave, the great experience that they've had when they've used the yellow cab. So in addition to being a great community supporter, they also are a great business leader and they are definitely part of the Long Beach fabric and I believe makes us more competitive city by being so. Anyway, we urge you to support staff's recommendation on the pilot program. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. F's. Evening. Members of the Council. Mr. Mayor. Mr. City Manager, on behalf of the 257 least drivers and driver owners of Long Beach Yellow Cab Cooperative Inc. I want to thank you all for your work on this item, but in particular, I want to single out the fine work of Jason McDonald and our tourists, Sanchez and Mark Taylor . As we move forward with this, we look forward to continuing to work with the city and its fine staff. And so I want to thank them. Right now I have a couple of people I want to introduce. We have several of our driver owners and our at least drivers. Could you please stand? These are the people that serve the city day and night, every single day without fail. And I just want to point them out. Thank you. Thank you. I also want to point out that this year in in particular, with respect to the the rebranding we had, we were so fortunate this year to have five fellows from Cairo, Southern California, five young geniuses working with us, and three of them are here. So if I could get them to stand and just acknowledge their their great work. All right. Thank you. You know, we as an industry find ourselves the reluctant participant of one of the great public policy debates that's going that is going on today. Hardly a day goes by that you don't hear the news. Cities everywhere are struggling with really what to do with their taxicab companies to address issues of the of the unlevel playing field that exists. And so I want to thank Long Beach for for taking the lead. I have a lot of experience with our International Taxi Trade Association. And to my knowledge, this is the first time that a city has has looked at constructive ways to to relax regulations while maintaining all the benefits of the taxi industry, including fingerprint based background checks, full time insurance, AXA, accessible transportation for people in wheelchairs and the like. I want to make myself available for questions on the first item, which is the public convenience and necessity hearing. And, and thank you in advance and urge your your vote yes to direct the staff to proceed with the pilot program, which will end up giving us the flexibility in order to succeed. Our goal is to have a business model that allows us to serve each and every customer who who wants our service. The current business model does not allow that. In the end, it's going to be the customer who benefits from better service. So thank you very much and we look forward to working with you. Thank you, Mr. Ralphs. We're all set. They're seeing no other public comments. I'm going to turn this over. I'm going to have the council deliberate and close the hearing to start us off as the maker of the motion. Councilwoman Mongo. Thank you to staff and thank you to our community partners and Yellow Cab. Many of you heard at our Economic Development and Finance Committee meeting how we've discussed the importance of having a partner in our community to ensure that we can serve our disabled community, our airports and and the others. And while we are supporters of business and the new opportunities that are coming, we want to be sure that our partner, Yellow Cab, who's been there for us through the years and has supported our residents, who has been our partner in going green, who has been our partner in ensuring that our disabled community can get to and from visits to their family and the community and their hospitals and their doctor's appointments, that they have that opportunity to have an even playing field. I appreciate and look forward to the opportunity to see how they explore their new branding and the 199 car variants. And for those of you who are interested in knowing more about the pilot program, that'll be an item tow later. But right now on this hearing, I hope that we have enough support to make this happen. Great. Thank you. And the second year of the motion, Councilwoman Price. Thank you. I want to echo what Councilwoman Mongo just said and acknowledge the wrong the long partnership that Yellow Cab has had with the city of Long Beach. They have proven themselves to be a responsible business operating within the city. Having been very involved, myself and Mothers Against Drunk Driving and organizations that promote the use of taxi cabs. I will say that they have. Embraced efforts that some other cities have been slow to embrace in terms of transportation options available. So I want to thank them for that. The industry is absolutely changing and there's no question about it. I want to give this particular business an acknowledgment for understanding what it means to stay current and make some significant changes to your operations and your business model in light of the changing industry. One of the things that I've found when we talk with a lot of our businesses in the community, mostly smaller businesses, but the changes are happening around them and they're reacting to them and sometimes they're responding too late and they're not understanding what happened. But the truth is that their business model did not change in light of the surrounding environment around them. And so the fact that you are rebranding yourselves, I think is huge. There's all sorts of data and research out there that talks about how a brand impacts a company's success. So I think that's huge. And changing basically your service model. The fact that we are one of the first cities to kind of embark upon this process of relaxing some of the requirements or thinking outside the box in terms of what we can do to help a business is something that I'm happy to be doing. I think it's it remains to be seen in terms of what other cities do and where we go with this debate in the in the nation as a whole. But given the fact that we have a long partnership with with this particular business, I think that it's a it's definitely a venture worth taking and pursuing and doing what we can to make sure that we are in a position to support you, support your growth and support your staying in the city as a healthy, growing industry and business. So I hope that my colleagues join us and moving forward, I want to thank staff for coming to us with these recommendations. I know they've worked really hard and our team has really educated those of us who are on the Economic Development Finance Committee, really about the industry and the changes in the industry and the real necessity for us to try to do something to solidify the partnership and really to support the partnership. So thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Andrews. Yes, thank you, Mayor. I, too, would like to echo and what I to council members are speaking about the yellow card. You know, I am in fully support of the yellow cab, you know, request to authorize additional cabs as well as offering competitive prices to our constituents. They have been a very reliable company in our city and has been a strong reputation of constantly giving back to our community and providing a level of outstanding services now to pay. They've known to pay their fees, often discounted towards our seniors and disability and the 50 square miles of guaranteed coverage. I can go on and on about the bill, the benefits of having them in, not only in my community but throughout the entire city of Long Beach. It is truly a privilege to work with the company who has been in business for so many years and is known to know for their standards and have never, ever wavered . I also would like to echo Mr. Goodman statement whenever you need call on the yellow cab and they will be there. I want to thank you guys so much for being out, you know, in our city of Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzales. You guys do such a great job. It's it's been said many times over, but a few of the other things that you all do, you know, you help people go out and vote, which is very important. Seniors are being taken care of. I know myself, I'm a downtown resident. So oftentimes to get to the convention center, it's taking yellow cab. And so y'all have been a real amazing staple. And you're changing your business model. You're doing the rebranding to stay competitive. And we are, you know, cutting edge here in the city. And we want to make sure that, you know, businesses have a fair chance. So thank you for being here. Appreciate it. Councilmember Richardson. Thanks, Mayor. I think Yellow Cabs is a great company. I've certainly had my share of cab rides. And I'll just say, I think the the the rebranding is fantastic. These cars look great. I'm looking forward to download an app. And so best of luck to you. I'll be obviously voting in in favor of this, but I look forward to the next chapter of Long Beach Yellow Cab. Thank you. Councilmember Austin. And I don't know to say anything that hasn't already been said, but yes, I will support this item. And Yellow Cab has always been a great community partner. It's been there for all of the big events. And so if you have any pedicabs, I invite you to beat Streets on June six. Before we go to a vote, I'm going to make a couple quick comments. Let me just first, obviously echo what the council said, but I want to make sure that we're very clear what the council's doing tonight actually is the first of its kind across the country. This has not happened anywhere else where a city is actually deregulating a taxi company to allow it to be more competitive in the current market marketplace. Right now, I think it's there's a nationwide conversation happening about the sharing economy and what that means to industry, and particularly industry that has for a long time provided good jobs for the people with a steady paycheck, provided good service. And so what Yellow Cab is doing by by moving to this new model and by the city supporting it, is allowing this company to innovate, to deregulate, and to be able to be competitive with the other models that are out there. In addition to that, I think the rebrand is really incredibly thoughtful. I think that it's going to be exciting to see a new app as well as a new brand that will be competitive. All the other products that are out there. And this is not about not supporting what is happening in the sharing economy. This is about supporting a community partner that has been with us for a long time and ensuring that those services that are only provided by taxi companies, the services to the disabled, the services on Election Day, the services for seniors, the easy access to for tourists who are dependent on seeing a cab when they arrive at the airport, remain in the city, and to ensure that we stay competitive across the country. So this is actually a very important and significant moment, I think, and I'm really proud of Long Beach for taking the lead on this issue. This issue, any time it's come before a city. At any city has been, quite frankly, a total disaster. And I think you've seen a breakdown of people working together. And I think this has been something that I'm really, really proud of. And I want to thank Yellow Cab. I want to thank city staff. And I want to thank the council for for being so thoughtful here. And with that, we'll call the vote. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Item item 20, please.