Few things in life are ever quite as they appear. This is no exception.
This is one of the few times we've seen labor apparently willing to work against its own interests.

Adding more taxis in a down economy cannot possibly benefit the labor side of the argument unless they just want to use the taxis for write off expenses and/or for other purposes. Many drivers sighting the lack of business and the economic conditions said that if the bill passes it could force them to find other employment.

Taxi industry caps are there for a good reason. They can prevent the supply from far exceeding the demand. They keep our streets from being flooded with thousands of unwanted omnipresent taxis. What good are more taxis, without increased business demand? Where are the environmentalists in this issue?

The issue of "slavery" was mentioned by one of the bills supporters, no one is ever forced into driving a cab or staying in one. Most would say that the process for earning a hack license requires considerable effort, therefore it must be something desirable, even with its problems, otherwise there wouldn't be so many taxi drivers.

"Big taxi bosses". To describe taxi company owners...
Lets examine one of the owners in this case, Mr. Nabely. An immigrant himself, he started driving a cab in the 1980's, would work hard to build a small cab company that much later merged with Yellow cab. The key to providing better public service was considered the computerized dispatch system and having a provider large enough to serve the County. Multiple small companies seem advantageous until you realize that many who would call a cab will simply call two or three companies and take whoever shows up first. The $55.00 per day taxi rental fee, Sunday is free, the lowest in the area, seems expensive until one considers that it covers the 24 hour take home car, commercial insurance, repairs in facility, the infrastructure of a computerized dispatch system, office and staff, government transportation contracts and business promotion. After pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into building an industry that would provide employment for mostly immigrants, many say that Nabely should be congratulated for creating a market business environment rather than being vilified.

However, being a proud "conspiracy theorist", I have considered the possibility that the bill cb-36 could have been management conceived as well. The 400 extra cabs flooding the market will find that they will still need the computer dispatch system for serving the public in PG as hailing a cab is not a likely method as in DC because of population density. I was told that the fee for using the computerized dispatch system will be about $75.00 per week, and times 400 more cabs, that's $30,000 dollars per week in extra revenue. Not a bad return at all, although Mr. Nabely said publicly that he was against the legislation and had mentioned that he had plans to sue the County if the bill passes. Note that Mr. Nabely doesn't lose any of his medallions by cb-36 and the cabs vacated by current drivers will be leased to others. The only losers in this equation is obviously the drivers who have created even more competition for themselves.

Given that all nine Council members voted for this legislation knowing that it is detrimental to the industry, it can mean only one thing...
What the passing of this bad legislation is most likely about is political ambition. The PG Council members have their eyes on higher offices and what better way to achieve these offices is there than to pander to politically active organizations such as the two that lobbied for the bill cb-36, Casa de Maryland and the Advancement Project with some industry providers with little understanding of economics. It is important to remember that Casa de Maryland is also funded by a foreign government. Casa de Maryland promises to advocate the campaign of any candidate that works for its agenda. Here's a link to Casa de Maryland's Candidate prequalification questionaire form...http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CasaInAction

While the general public has little interest in how many taxis flood their streets, they likely are concerned about the growing violence and unemployment they see under the Councils leadership as well as the fact that PG County is one of the few in America where you can actually be murdered 'in custody' before trial and nothing will be done about it. The Ronnie White case of extrajudicial execution has left a lot of voters with too many unanswered questions.

The Council members need politically active lobby groups to represent them positively in a new way to the public to overcome bad memories.

Reminiscent of Marie Antwonette, the Gazette quoted Dernoga as ignorantly saying, "It's going to force everybody to work harder,... if that's what competition does, it's going to be good for everybody."

Its time to make Dernoga and the rest of these ambitious politicians work much harder and in vain for their futures. Here are their names, vote against them at every opportunity...

Thomas E. Dernoga... running for Prince George's County State's Attorney.

Will Campos...probably running to keep his seat.

Eric Olson...running to keep his seat.

Ingrid M. Turner...unsure at the time of this writing.

Andrea Harrison...running to retain seat.

Samuel H. Dean...running for County Executive.

Camille Exum...running for Maryland house of delegates according to a sign in Capital Heights.

Tony Knotts...running for County Executive.

Marilynn M. Bland...is bitter about leaving office because somehow voters were able to impose term limits on PG politicians, however the damage they can do while in office is sufficient.

Here's a few good websites for more information...
www.votesmart.org/bio.php

www.pfcpgc.org/

www.helpsavemaryland.com/

This Gazette link features Kim Propeack, director of Casa de Maryland, testifying Tuesday in support of the legislation at a hearing in Upper Marlboro...http://www.gazette.net/stories/07152010/prinnew172946_32535.php