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Cab rate rules to change

• Three Albany city commissioners are selected to serve on a proposal team that will deal with an $80 million credit due the city.

Carlton Fletcher

ALBANY — Following remarks by Albany cab drivers Malachi Lewis and Willie James Jackson, the Albany City Commission voted during its work session Tuesday morning to tentatively put in place new taxi fare and rate management guidelines under which city taxis must operate.

Lewis, a 38-year veteran in the business, asked commissioners to – among other things – do away with the flat $15 rate cabbies may charge customers at hotels, throughout the city, saying the requirement did not make sense to the drivers or customers.

"It's unfair to customers here (at East Albany hotels, which are located closer to the southwest Georgia Regional Airport), and it's unfair to us when we go there (to West Albany hotels farther away)," Lewis said. "We'd like for you to let us start running our meters when we pick up the customers, just as we usually do."

Lewis said even with gas approaching $4 a gallon, a fee of $2.25 per mile is adequate to cover cabbies' costs. He did, however, say the need for a set per-hour rate for customer-requested wait time was crucial.

"That's not unreasonable," Lewis said. "We're not talking about time waiting at a railroad track or routine traffic stops. We're talking about when customers ask us to wait for them to complete some kind of business."

Assistant City Manager James Taylor, who had worked with the taxi business on the guidelines, suggested an #18-per-hour wait charge that allows for easy calculation of charges for fractions of an hour and promised to look into the possibility of sealing meters so that their charges may not be tampered with.

Jackson, meanwhile, answered charges that were leveled against his company at an earlier commission meeting.

"We're not criminals," the cabbie said after responding to allegations made by a former customer. "We are not cheating anyone."

$80 MILLION CREDIT

Earlier during the meeting, the commission voted to appoint commissioners Bob Langstaff, Tommie Postell and Dorothy Hubbard to a municipal trust proposal team that will work with Water, Gas & Light Commission officials to suggest the usage of some $80 million-plus in credit that will be extended to the city by the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia starting in 1009.

The funds accrued when WG&L paid in funds to MEAG on bonds that were collected as a hedge against feared deregulation costs that never materialized.

"This is an awesome task," Mayor Willie Adams, who also serves as de facto chair of WG&L, said. "We're talking about $80 million; this will be one of the most important tasks of this administration."

City Attorney Nathan Davis outlined the components on a new five-year lease agreement worked out between the city's transit authority and Destiny Tours and Shuttle Service, which calls for the city to pay some $60,000 a year in rent to Destiny. The city pays only 10 percent of the cots of the agreement.

CITY CODES

Assistant City Manager Wes Smith updated the commission on the ongoing recodification process, noting that city department heads had some 600 questions related to codes that needed answering before the process moved forward.

"Once those questions are answered, we'll present them to this body for your consideration," Smith said.

Code Enforcement Director Mike Tilson asked the commission to adopt the International Property Maintenance Code to replace the Standard Housing Code now in place in the city so that his department could apply enforcement matters to commercial as well as residential property.

"People have said we've slowed down on clearing up the blight downtown, but this gives us a tool to move forward on commercial property," Tilson said. "We expect some complaints because it will cost property owners money to bring their commercial property up to code, but this is a way we can continue to move forward."

Lott said with the planned addition of four new Code Enforcement officers in the fiscal year 2009 budget and the addition of a fifth officer who will be funded by Phoebe Putney Memorial HOspital, the department would "have the personnel in place to do their job."

Commissioners voted to approve the request.

The commission also voted to approve bids on a six-month mowing contract offered by Starter Home Builders ($112,397.49) for maintenance of 555 city-owned vacant lots; roof replacement on the Carnegie Library by Anderson Roofing Co. ($81,283); and the installation of emergency equipment on police cars by Albany Communications ($44,970).

Central Services officials noted that the low bidder on the mowing contract turned out to be a covert attempt by Diversified Industries to win the contract, even though Diversified was in arrears for work it was to hove finished on a previous contract it was awarded by the city.

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