The tense situation seems to have ended after at least one meeting between the Worcester Human Rights Commission with Chief Gary Gemme and intervention by former City Councilor Juan Gomez and others.

Drivers, owners and community members have been afraid to speak-out publicly pointing to several high profile stories of Latino businesses in Worcester being vilified, harassed and eventually being forced to close.

The catalog of complaints have included:

* Police Officers removing passengers from vehicles and requesting passengers’ ID’s

* On at least one occasion, a police officer is reported to have taken a passenger’s cel phone to obtain access to the passenger’s private phone-call history.

* Shutting-down all transportation service on multiple occasions leaving drivers without pay, and passengers without rides

* Conducting sting operations, setting-up phony calls for service seeking to catch livery drivers transporting either non-client passengers or unscheduled fares (Under the livery ordinance, livery taxis cannot operate as taxi cabs responding to phone calls for service. All livery passengers are required to have scheduled appointments at least 12 hours earlier and to be registered clients.)

* Repeated reviewing of livery taxi log books and office log books

* Some drivers received multiple $100 tickets/fines

This targeted effort was possible based on re-vised ordinances approved by the Worcester City Council. Earlier this summer, Worcester Police Chief Gary Gemme provided City Council with a copy of the revisions to the “Worcester Police Department Taxi and Livery Regulations”. After contentious Council meetings two years earlier in May, 2006 the Manager sought to pre-empt Council discussion of the Chief’s revisions stating in his cover letter to Council, that the new regulations “do not require the approval of the City Council” and are “for the information of your Honorable Body.”

While the Council’s past debates have primarily focused on Worcester’s taxi cab companies and taxi medallions Chief Gemme’s June ordinance revisions instituted new regulations consolidating the Police Department’s oversight, and seeking to tighten regulations.

Sadly, City Council remained detached and unquestioning as I sat at that Council meeting. That detachment resulting from a lack of understanding of the important role Worcester’s new paratransit system and economy play in low-income and Spanish language communities. In the past, Worcester non-profits and community groups have have advocated for the development and funding of paratransit operations as an important small business initiative.

While there is a role, and obligation for the Chief and WPD to guarantee the safety of livery vehicles, City Councilors have a role and obligation to guarantee that our City has transit systems in place that assist, facilitate and fully respond to the needs of Worcester’s residents and we should also be supporting new small businesses not shutting them down.

As it stands now, if you are primarily Spanish speaking, or someone with limited English, Worcester’s Red and Yellow City sanctioned taxi system is hit or miss if you need to speak with someone in Spanish. Yellow Cab was first rude, and then hung-up on me when I called and twice asked, “¿Puedes hablar español … Spanish?” Worcester’s Latino residents deserve quality service, service which isn’t always available through the monopolized medallion system and Worcester City Council should have had stronger recognition of this need.

The Ecuadoran and Dominican drivers, who each purchase their own Lincoln Continental livery vehicles, licenses and insurance, invest on average $10,000 to operate. And although the Lincoln Continentals that define Worcester’s fleet far outshine the average medallioned taxi cab, the new regulations make it illegal to operate any vehicle older than seven years. In effect the new ordinance imposes a hefty tax that could never conceivably have been forced onto any other local business or industry. It is likely some drivers will go into debt or be forced out of business.

Worcester Police Officials have told City Councilors in the past that they suspected Worcester’s publicos and taxis of ferrying guns and drugs. And the new ordinance was predicated on the assumption that livery taxis are operating illegally and nefariously. Such subterfuge and hostility then became codified even further within an ordinance that also included such anti-business measures as forbidding exterior advertising on vehicles and declaring that the preferred means of transaction not be cash.

Whether it’s the recent anti-vendor initiative, failed NRSA economic development or this crippling of the paratransit system, Worcester has been hostile towards Latino small businesses of late.
Would City Council have ever regulated any other business by making old fashioned advertising illegal and telling Mr. Chamber of Commerce he shouldn’t be using cold hard cash? Never, ‘cuz they’d get their little white butts kicked.