A Call for Reconsideration, Well Done.

The agenda for the August 4^th 2010, meeting of the Grants Pass City Council was light.  The interesting action came in Requests from Citizens, dedicated to a single subject: the denial of a taxi-owner’s and taxi-driver’s license at the previous meeting.

            This writer led off the comments and requests with a speech pointing out that the City police had been respecting persons and perverting judgment; in granting the young man’s taxi-driver’s license in each of the previous 5 years and then denying it when he tried to start his own business, they showed that either they were either discriminating against a new business or allowing license applications from established companies to skate through police review without scrutiny.

            The next speaker was the young man whose appeal had been denied.  He said that he’d checked into insurance, got a reasonable quote for the $300,000 worth of coverage required by the City, and asked the agent how far back they checked driving records: three years.  His two tickets in the last three years were not a problem.  He also talked to the local bus transit service, asking what kind of driving record could get him hired.  His two tickets in three years were not a problem; they didn’t look back further.  He asked the Council to reconsider its decision and also to set some objective guidelines for the Department of Public Safety to follow in the future.

            The third and fourth speakers spoke in his support, with different information to add.  One showed a printout that had been circulating among the council and posted online, with the record of the numerous traffic stops the young man had endured over the last year, resulting in only one ticket.  He thought that the police had put it out in an effort to discredit the gentleman.

            It turned out that it had been put out by a councilor who was curious about the nature of said stops.  When it came to Lily Morgan’s turn to give Comments from Councilors, she moved to reconsider their denial of the licenses, as a majority voter on the issue.  She was seconded by another councilor who had voted to deny, Rick Riker.  Councilor Kris Woodburn argued against, saying that there was no “real” new information and the process had been fair.  Morgan replied that the nature of the stops was new and pertinent information.  The motion passed 4-3, the same margin by which he had been denied.

            This time, the young man did everything right.  He had a few speakers with different testimony from each; no children inside the building; and he stuck to the criteria, public safety, hammering the lack of objective standards in the City’s ordinance.  The result was almost magical; representative government worked as it ought, to control the destructive power of the City.

(However, while it was reconsidered, it was eventually denied.)