Three members of the D.C. Taxicab Commission who opposed replacing zone fares with time and distance meters will be replaced by new mayoral appointees.
Mayor Adrian Fenty, who did not let a deadlocked taxi commission stall his plan to install meters in every D.C. cab, last week appointed three people to replace all but one of the members who voted against meters.
Current Commissioners Theresa Travis, William Carter and Stanley Tapscott are out. Appointees Scott Kubly, Paul Cohn and Bart Lasner are in.
Dena Iverson, Fenty’s spokeswoman, said the new members are “filling vacancies” on the commission, as the terms of Travis, Carter and Tapscott had all expired.
This was not a matter of retaliation, she said.
The eight-member commission is charged with licensing all cabs and limousines, setting rates and regulations, and enforcing those rules through hack inspections and other means. Members earn $1,350 per year plus $25 per meeting.
The body deadlocked on what to do about taxi fares in September. A series of votes, all of which ended 4-4, failed to answer whether D.C. should keep zone fares, require time and distance meters, or demand hybrid “zone meters.” Critics of the commission accused its members of punting their responsibility back to Fenty.
A month after that meeting, Fenty went ahead and announced the time and distance meters without the commission’s support. D.C. cab drivers now face $1,000 fines for operating without a meter.
Carter was not surprised about being replaced.
“They want what they want, not necessarily what’s best for the city,” Carter, who backed a zone meter system, said of the Fenty administration. “That’s the way this administration works.”
The fourth commission member to resist meters, former D.C. Councilwoman Sandra Allen, is in her second year of a four-year term.
