Mayor Gray pitches for ‘PFW

Posted on September 27, 2012 by admin

From r to l: Mayor Vincent Gray, WPFW general manager John Hughes, Pete Tucker

“One of the important and unique things about ‘PFW is that it’s commercial free,” D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray said over the airwaves of Pacifica Radio’s WPFW 89.3 FM during the station’s summer pledge drive in August.

“There’s no appearance of being influenced by someone who may be purchasing ads because no one purchases ads. This is a station that is supported by the public and that’s the best support you can possibly have,” said Gray, who donated $100 and helped the station raise more than $4,000 during his hour of on-air pitching. “I’m proud not only to be a supporter at the verbal level… but I’ve made my own financial commitment,” he said.   Continue reading →

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Uber showdown Monday at the Council

Posted on September 23, 2012 by admin

Photo courtesy of techcrunch.com

Listen to Sept. 22 edition of The Taxi Link on WUST 1120 AM

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“Uber is having it both ways: they’re operating as a taxi, they’re operating as a limousine service, and they’re not regulated.” – Tony Norman, co-host of The Taxi Link

The battle over whether and how to regulate luxury sedan services like Uber will take center stage Monday at a public hearing of the D.C. Council’s Committee on the Environment, Public Works and Transportation.  Continue reading →

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Taken for a ride: press coverage of D.C.’s taxi industry is unfair to public and drivers

Posted on September 16, 2012 by admin

A DCTC hack inspector uses his vehicle to block in a cab (a move of questionable legality), and an MPD officer (front) then arrives to assist the inspector.

The Taxi Link airs on WUST 1120 AM. Listen to Sept. 15 show here:

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“You have one media person interviewing another media person who shares the same biased opinion.” – Tony Norman, co-host of The Taxi Link

“I think if you had the policymakers in the room right now what they would say is…” Thus began Washington Post reporter Mike DeBonis’ response to a caller last week on WAMU’s The Kojo Nnamdi Show, guest-hosted by Rebecca Roberts. It is unclear what policymakers would have added to DeBonis’ and Roberts’ one-sided discussion of D.C.’s taxi industry. “Hailing a taxi and paying for the ride should get a little easier thanks to the biggest overhaul of the D.C. taxi system in decades,” Roberts said in her introduction. But, alas, the “technological and ecological improvements” have been held up in court, said Roberts.

Judge Monica Parchment of the Contract Appeals Board has indeed suspended the city’s controversial 5-year, $35 million contract with VeriFone to install so-called taxi smart meters in all 6,500 District cabs. Despite cabbies’ pleas and protests, the VeriFone deal was pushed through using emergency legislation. Serious questions about the now-suspended contract remain unasked and unanswered in the media. “Unfortunately for cab riders, [the Board’s decision] means it’s going to be at least a couple months and perhaps a lot longer before we start seeing these devices in most and eventually all D.C. cabs,” said DeBonis.  Continue reading →

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Is The Informer being blacklisted because of its black readership?

Posted on September 12, 2012 by admin

From l to r: Attorney Johnny Barnes, Washington Informer publisher Denise Rolark Barnes (not related), ANC commissioner Keith Silver

(Cross posted at The Washington Informer and The Urban Revival.)

The Washington Informer has a mostly black readership and that appears to be why it was denied a District government contract which instead was awarded to The Washington Times, a right-wing newspaper with a mostly white readership. In an email to The Informer, Joseph Giddis, director of the D.C. Office of Contracts, said the newspaper was not qualified for the contract to publish ads for unclaimed property because it “serves a specific ethnic group” and therefore “does not meet the requirement of a newspaper of general circulation.” D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray called the decision “ill-informed.”

“What constitutes a general circulation in the District of Columbia?” D.C. Housing Authority commissioner Aquarius Vann-Ghasri asked at a rally last month of more than thirty supporters of The Informer. “I am astonished that the Office of [Contracts] could describe The Washington Informer as anything other than a ‘newspaper of general circulation,'” wrote Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells. Johnny Barnes, an attorney representing The Informer, characterized Giddis’ statement to his client thusly: “You’re not qualified because you appeal to black people.” Continue reading →

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Is classism behind D.C.’s push to regulate taxis, not Uber?

Posted on September 9, 2012 by admin

Photo courtesy of Uber

The Taxi Link airs on WUST 1120 AM. Listen to the Sept. 8 show here:

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“Uber is a classic example of… class economic warfare,” said Tony Norman, a D.C. ANC commissioner and co-host with TheFightBack‘s Pete Tucker of The Taxi Link, which airs on WUST 1120 AM and is sponsored by The Small Business Association of DC Taxicab Drives, D.C.’s largest cabbie organization. “The council and the mayor are giving Uber a pass simply because the bottom line is the clientele [they’re serving are] well-to-do middle class people who they feel are wonderful, safe, nice people.” Whereas in the eyes of city officials, said Norman, “regular cab drivers [are] just the lower class of people that we need to regulate. They’re just one step above criminals.” Or are they?

As part of D.C. taxi chair Ron Linton’s propaganda campaign to sell his taxi overhaul, which includes panic buttons in all D.C. cabs, he falsely accused drivers of committing a wave of assaults on female passengers. Linton’s criminalization of drivers is consistent with previous taxi chairs, including his immediate past predecessor, Dena Reed, who served as Linton’s general counsel until recently. When a dozen drivers attempted to present Reed with a petition signed by more than 900 drivers in opposition to proposed changes to the regulatory code, they were pushed out, locked out, referred to by Reed as “a mob,” and had the police called on them. But Reed may have been a moderate compared to her predecessor, Leon Swain, who wore a gun to commission meetings. Swain is a former police officer with the Metropolitan Police Department, as is Linton who served as an MPD reserve officer for 26 years.  Continue reading →

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Remembering Brian Anders through action

Posted on September 7, 2012 by admin

Photo by Daniel Del Pielago

Listen to TheFightBack‘s 2010 interview with Brian Anders

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Brian Anders, a tireless D.C. activist and homeless advocate, passed away August 28. He asked that he be remembered not with tears but action. When the D.C. Council returns from summer recess on Sept. 18 activists plan to honor his request. “We want to dedicate our Welcome Back the Council action this year to Brian,” said Parisa Norouzi, executive director of the grassroots organizing group Empower DC, where Anders served as a longtime board member.

“Brian led a life of action and he wanted to be remembered with action,” said Farah Fosse, a housing organizer who knew Anders for over ten years and served on the board of Empower DC with him half that long. She spoke at an Aug. 30 action/service honoring Anders outside the John A. Wilson Building. “He wanted not just his life, but also his death to be about raising hell,” Fosse said. Continue reading →

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VeriFone contract suspended

Posted on September 3, 2012 by admin

D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray speaks with reporters at an Aug. 22 press conference as taxi chair Ron Linton and VeriFone executives look on.

The Taxi Link airs on WUST 1120 AM. Listen to the Sept. 1 show here:

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“The District is hereby ordered to… suspend any further contract work,” Judge Monica Parchment of the Contract Appeals Board wrote in her decision suspending the city’s five-year, $35 million contract with VeriFone for installation of taxi smart meters in all 6,500 D.C. cabs within 90 days. “The District shall maintain this stay on [the VeriFone contract] until this protest is resolved by the Board on its merits,” said Friday’s decision.

Appearing on The Small Business Association of DC Taxicab Drivers’ radio show, The Taxi Link, which airs WUST 1120 AM and is co-hosted by TheFightBack‘s Pete Tucker and ANC commissioner Tony Norman, George Lowe, a lobbyist for Creative Mobile Technologies (CMT), said, “VeriFone and the Taxicab Commission have to immediately cease and desist installing any additional equipment in any of the taxis until a final determination is made, which the judge anticipates will probably take some time between 45 to 60 days.”

CMT was among the eight companies to bid on the taxi smart meter contract which was awarded to VeriFone in July. Along with fellow competitor RideCharge, now TaxiMagic, CMT protested the contract saying the procurement process was flawed and unfairly benefitted VeriFone. The District disagreed. So much so, in fact, that it refused to await the Contract Appeals Board’s ruling on the VeriFone deal before beginning installation, which was suspended Friday.

Continue reading →

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D.C.’s very funny VeriFone contract

Posted on August 27, 2012 by admin

Mayor Vincent Gray speaking at last week's press conference on taxi smart meters

The Taxi Link airs on WUST 1120 AM. Listen to the Aug. 25th show here:

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“We’re not doing anything that is not legal,” D.C. Taxicab Commission chairman Ron Linton told TheFightBack at a press conference last week to announce the beginning of the installation of the new taxi smart meter system which will bring credit card readers, GPS tracking and mini-TV screens to the District’s 6,500 cabs. Despite the declaration from Linton, who has a history of making inaccurate statements, courts have yet to determine the legality of VeriFone’s 5-year, $35 million taxi smart meter contract with the taxi commission, which has been in violation of D.C. law for several years running due to its lack of taxi industry representation.

Not that any of this is stopping Linton and D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray from moving ahead at breakneck speed to install the new meters. “We’re on a very tight time table to get this done. It is our intent to have all cabs equipped over the next 90-plus days,” said Gray. The mayor is pushing ahead despite the fact that VeriFone’s backseat ads have proven very unpopular in New York City, and D.C. cabbies have found VeriFone’s equipment to be unreliable, according to Negede Abebe, chairman of The Small Business Association of D.C. Taxicab Drivers. “The system has recurring technical problems,” Abebe testified last week. “We warn DCTC that this problem may cause massive disruption in taxicab service for days at a time.”  Continue reading →

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WPFW and NAACP-Alexandria Hold Town Hall

Posted on August 23, 2012 by admin

Listen to The Latino Media Collective on Pacifica Radio WPFW 89.3 FM:

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“We know affordable housing is dwindling in Alexandria,” activist and Alexandria resident Nisaa Harper told the standing-room only crowd at the Charles Houston Recreation Center. “The truth of the matter is everyone who’s left this community is not going to be able to come back,” she said.

This past Monday in Alexandria’s Old Town, the Local Station Board of Pacifica Radio WPFW 89.3 FM and the Alexandria chapter of the NAACP held a town hall meeting to hear about the issues the community is facing, in particular gentrification and the lack of affordable housing.  Continue reading →

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The Human Cost of Gentrification: Pete talks with Bruce DePuyt

Posted on August 21, 2012 by admin

“The Washington area is a boom-town, cranes are everywhere and communities are on the upswing as investors pour billions into new real estate. But what happens to people who get priced out by all this progress?” NewsTalk host Bruce DePuyt asked in his introduction to a segment on gentrification in the D.C. area with TheFightBack‘s Pete Tucker. The NewsChannel 8 reporter continued, “Critics say there are losers as well as winners in all this development. That’s because many people are finding themselves priced out of communities they have long called home.”

Watch Pete on NewsTalk below: Continue reading →

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