By Matt Chiappardi, Staff Writer
HIGHTSTOWN With the moratorium on new taxi licenses now lifted, the Borough Council this week set a deadline of Nov. 9 for both cab owners and drivers to submit their applications to the borough.
That move came after the council realized it had inadvertently made every single taxi operating inside the borough illegal when it lifted the nine-month moratorium in September.
Once council member, Mike Theokas, voted against the deadline because he said the date was arbitrary and it still didn’t do anything to address the number of cabs in the borough.
When the council put the moratorium in place in late December 2008, the language in the resolution temporarily extended existing taxi licenses until local leaders made a decision on how they would regulate cabs.
The resolution estimated that a decision would be reached by early March, but the debate over the issue extended to September.
In that time, two attempts to introduce an ordinance that would restrict the number of taxi companies, and the amount of cars in their fleets, failed, and debates over the issue would sometimes last hours at council meetings.
On Sept. 21, the council did lift the moratorium with two of the members who in the past had voted to keep it in place Council President Walter Sikorski and Councilman Jeff Bond citing frustration in taking that action.
According to language in the December resolution, all taxis in the borough were suddenly unlicensed for 2009, but Councilwoman Isabel McGinty, who had twice voted to lift the moratorium, said that wasn’t a major problem.
”It would be wholly unreasonable to issue a ticket when for a practical matter, the owners don’t know when their paperwork is supposed to be submitted,” Ms. McGinty said this week.
With the council’s action at Monday’s meeting, those owners and their drivers won’t be penalized for being unlicensed until after the Nov. 9 deadline. Applications made before that date would be for licenses good through 2010 and cost the applicant a prorated fee for the remainder of this year and $50 for next year.
After the deadline, there is a six-week period where companies would not able to take on new drivers, in order not to inundate the borough with paperwork, Ms. McGinty said.
As of Tuesday, only one company, out of the seven operating locally, had submitted its application to the borough since the moratorium was lifted, said Deputy Clerk Leona Baylor, who processes the applications.
When asked how the borough would prompt more firms to submit their paperwork, Ms. McGinty said that two letters have been sent to the companies explaining the situation.
”All of this has been discussed at length by the council in public meetings that cab owners could have attended if they were interested,” Ms. McGinty said.
The deadline passed the council by 4-1 vote, Mr. Bond had left the meeting early, with the lone dissent coming from Mr. Theokas.
”This is an arbitrary deadline date and we still have no control over the number of cabs,” Mr. Theokas said.
”Regardless of whether there is a deadline or not there’s still an unlimited number of drivers who could conceivably license themselves in that time period,” he added.
Mr. Theokas was on a committee along with Mayor Bob Patten, Councilman Larry Quattrone, Police Chief James Eufemia, Latino Advisory Council member and GOP council candidate Esther Velazquez and Ms. Baylor formed after the moratorium was put in place and charged with addressing complaints residents had about taxis clogging up streets and honking their horns in the predawn hours.
That committee had drafted restrictions ranging from allowing only three companies to operate three cabs each to seven operating five each. However, those restrictions failed to be introduced at least twice.
The council did pass regulations this past month that restrict cabs from parking or idling on public streets or commercial properties without permission.
But in order to address some residents’ complaints, Mr. Theokas said a restriction on the quantity of companies and cabs still must be in place.
Those regulations are something Ms. McGinty, who has maintained through the debate that talk about numerical restrictions is premature without more information, isn’t ruling out.
”I’m open to the discussion. Now I think we’ll know more once we see how many application are formally submitted to the borough,” she said.
But with draft ordinances with those restrictions having failed twice and seemingly waning enthusiasm for them on council, Mr. Theokas said he isn’t optimistic.
”I’m losing faith. If it turns out to be not what council wants, so be it,” he said.
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