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The city struck a secret deal with cabdrivers in order to sway their support for the now-dead outer-borough street-hail plan — and to stick it to the medallion owners who opposed it, court papers charge.
In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, a group of medallion owners says the mayor’s office and the Taxi and Limousine Commission “conspired” with the Taxi Workers Alliance to get the union to drop its opposition to a plan that would have allowed 18,000 livery drivers to compete with cabbies in picking up street hails in the outer boroughs.
In return, the yellow-cab drivers would get the fare hike they’d been seeking — with 100 percent of the extra cash going to them, the suit says. The 17 percent hike marks the first time a fare increase has gone exclusively to the drivers, the suit says.
In addition to the “huge fare increase,” the city also promised it would “eliminate or decrease the percentage fee for credit-card charges, and set up a health and disability fund for the drivers,” the suit says.
The drivers were initially adamant in their opposition to the plan, but reversed their position in June after getting the “secret deal” from the city, the suit claims.
The filing says all the talks for the “corrupt, surreptitious agreement” were improperly carried out behind closed doors.
“These illegal actions are all part of a concerted plan concocted by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and [TLC Commissioner David] Yassky to severely and recklessly diminish the value of taxi medallions for no reason other than to retaliate against medallion owners,” the action charges.
The outer-borough hail plan was struck down in June by a judge who found it unconstitutional, but the 17 percent fare increase went into effect last month. In addition, the way the cab credit-card charge costs are processed was changed to the owners’ detriment, and they’ve been told they have to set aside six cents from every ride for the creation of a drivers fund, the suit says.
“Such a regulation is social engineering by an administrative agency that goes beyond the powers granted to it by the legislature,” the filing says.
“It’s political payback to the taxi drivers for supporting the outer-borough plan,” said Steven Mintz, the lawyer for the owners’ group, the Greater New York Taxi Association.
TLC spokesman Allan Fromberg said, “At a time when medallion sales prices have yet again reached record highs, and the city itself is seeking to sell an additional 2,000 new medallions, their claim reaches a new level of absurdity.”
The Taxi Workers Alliance did not return a call for comment.