Petitions are People Power: Power to the Long Stepped Upon Cabbie!
During a recent telephone conversation with Abdi Jama, my City of Seattle direct mayoral contact, he suggested more than once that more numbers are needed, meaning more participation from the greater Seattle/King County taxi community. Of course that is an obvious thought and goal, and to that end, expect to see two petitions being distributed for everyone to sign. One petition will be focused on getting all the retired taxicab medallions reinstated to their original holders. The other will ask for all the leased medallions (now regarded as intangible property) to be made into real, private property. My modest goal is a minimum 1000 signatures per each petition but more the better. I view this as a summer-long campaign, with petitions delivered to the Seattle mayor, the King County County Executive and to both the Seattle and KC councils sometime in September. Once they are delivered, let the serious negotiations begin.
Consider the following as possible text language or rough drafts for the two petitions.
Petition #1: The Issue: The Reinstatement of All Retired City of Seattle & King County Medallions
We the undersigned request that the medallion retirement policy as stipulated by Seattle Municipal Code 6.311 be overturned and reversed, resulting in the return of all retired medallions back to their original owners, an action occurring no later than January 1st 2027
Petition #2: The Issue: The Transformation and Redefinition of All City of Seattle and King County Medallions from Leased (or Intangible Property) to Real Private Property
We the undersigned request that the City of Seattle and King County reverse their long standing policy of leasing taxicab medallions (known as intangible ownership), instead making all Seattle and King County taxicab medallions real and private property not subject to revocation or cancellation
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As you can see, if successful, it will completely alter the dynamic and relationship with the City of Seattle and King County, making the industry more of an equal partner, ending what can only be seen as a subservient agreement where taxicab remains inferior and minus a real voice. I want everyone to ask themselves why you would want this kind of one-down agreement to continue? As I said last month, all so-called medallion owners need to admit they do not own anything. Again, a lease is not real property. Reinstating all the retired medallions, and having your medallions become real and not theoretical property is all about empowerment, of gaining real control over your lives. What cannot be denied is that local government has not treated the local taxi industry with the dignity and respect required, instead treating everyone as wayward children. As you well know, you are grown adults and deserve to recognized as who you are. Ask yourselves, "when is enough?"
Uber Comedy
Feeling much pressure from both government regulators and private investors, they have to decided to begin doing 99 year background checks on their drivers. How old are their drivers? Silly, and stupid.
Consider these Candidates (Yes, I did the research) For the August 4th Primary
Admittedly, my choices are somewhat biased, with most of my favored candidates either from outside the usual political establishment or minority candidates though Cindy Ryu is an Olympia dinosaur. I once met her in passing. I liked her. There was some kind of taxi-related vote and I was in Olympia along with other taxi folks. She smiled. Most politicians growl when they see a group of cabbies!
I would say the vast majority of the candidates are mostly typical Seattle-lites: good people, perhaps flawed but still ultimately trustworthy. I have supported Pramila Jayapal multiple times but think it would be a wonderful gesture to send Gwen Kirkland to Congress. Her election would certainly make many in the GOP uncomfortable. Jayapal, given her celebrity status, has an opinion piece in the current "The Nation" magazine issue. Do I think Kirkland will defeat Jayapal. No. Do note that some of these candidates are confined to North Seattle. Okay, here they are:
US Rep Congressional District # 7
Gwen Kirkland
Legislative District # 32 State Senator
Cindy Ryu
Legislative District #32 Rep Position #1
Jenna Nand
Legislative District #32 Rep Position #2
Imraan Siddiqi
King County Assessor
Dominique M. Scarimbolo
State Supreme Court:
Justice Position #1
Colleen Melody
Justice Position #3
Jaime Michelle Hawk
Justice Position #5
Sharonda Amamilo
Justice Position #7
Karim A. Merchant
City of Seattle Council District #5 (5 Stars!)
Silas James
Seattle Municipal Judge Position #5
Garmon Newsom
City of Seattle Proposition #1 Property Tax Levy for the Seattle Public Library
Yes
(Consider this recommendation an asterisk * to my childhood experience relating to the bookmobile parked next to the Altura Drugstore in unincorporated Arapahoe County, Colorado, Summer 1963, when those wonderful women librarians fed this nine-year-old kid book after book the entire summer. They made me into the reader and writer I am, something I am forever grateful for. Proof of this was a little girl's comment, once I was back in school for the fourth grade at Saint Pius the Tenth, and after being instructed to read out loud, this sweet classmate exclaimed unprompted, "how much better I was reading aloud." Her comment expressed many things, finding myself completely surprised someone, anyone was paying attention to me, having grown accustomed to my inherent loneliness and isolation, reading my escape from parental and adult dysfunction.
Her observation is directly attributable to the many good librarian's kindness expressed toward a rough and tumble Todd's Trailer Court child desperate for something good in this crazy life, books that summer showing me sorrow wasn't always an expected outcome. Fast forward to January 1964, and my father broke and jobless, with us about to lose our mobile home and tossed out into the cold, a stark reality idling outside. Reading then was all I had sustaining me, my only foundation, my only stability.
While knowing the taxation in Seattle and King County is "out of wrack!" I will always support libraries. When considering your yes or no vote, I suggest you think about all the current nine-year-old kids, poverty stricken and scared like I was, merely wanting to know and embrace life. Opening a book can and will do that, revealing worlds that otherwise wouldn't be known. I first learned about Machu Picchi in a book. In 2002 I actually found myself there.
Those Summer 1963 days directly leading me to Saint Deiniol's Library (now Gladstone's Library) in Hawarden, North Wales, with having the good fortune of a poem, "to and fro," made part of a series that included Christina Rossetti, John Clare, George Meredith, this in Feb 2000. Many reading this perhaps will not understand how much of an achievement that was but I can guarantee you that the ladies helping me in that long ago bookmobile would certainly have known, breaking out in applause for the snotty-nosed comic book waif I was. In a sense those librarians too were a trifle Victorian, old-fashioned and quaint.)
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