Danielle Mendez testifies on pedicab criminal summonses and reform
Danielle Mendez, who oversees the Midtown Community Justice Center, says the bills reflect roundtable recommendations for comprehensive reform. She says the current system does not incentivize licensing or registration, lets anyone print DCWP signage, and criminalizes a primarily immigrant workforce while failing to address overcharging.
And we now have our first panel, which is Danielle.
Minkless, Minkless, Kenneth Winter, and McCann Camara.
Okay, great.
That's right.
We just, we have our first panel.
If you want to just start and we can get to the other panelists after.
Go ahead.
Sure.
Good morning.
Well, before we start, we're also joined by Council Member Banks.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you.
I'm Danielle Mendez.
I oversee the Midtown Community Justice Center where the pedicab criminal summonses are heard.
Thank you, Chair Epstein and members of the committee for hearing this package of bills that reflect the recommendations surfaced at the roundtable we held late last year.
Those recommendations guided the development of Intros 77, 673, 1026, 1063, 992, and 993.
Together, these bills include the components of comprehensive reform required to fix this dysfunctional industry.
The current status quo does not incentivize drivers to get licensed.
It does not incentivize vehicle owners to register their vehicles.
Vehicles can't easily be connected to their owners.
It does not allow consumers to easily identify legitimate pedicabs on the street or to know how much a ride will cost.
The signage DCWP currently provides for registered cabs is printed off a computer.
Anybody could make one.
It simultaneously criminalizes a primarily immigrant workforce by relying on law enforcement to respond to infractions in what should be a professional industry.
There's been a lot of discussion today and around this issue in general around overcharging consumers and ripping off tourists.
And I just want to be really clear that this is not what we're seeing in court.
Those issues are not being handled at all.
In most cases, these kinds of infractions would constitute misdemeanor arrest, not summonses, and we're not seeing those.
The cases coming into court are most frequently, over the last three months, these are the most frequent summonses.
Pedicabs without headlights, pedicabs without battery-operated taillight, without registration, no pedicab driver license, and operating in a bicycle lane.
The things that people really care about are not being addressed in court and are largely not being addressed at all.
There's something wrong with an industry if every worker who operates within it ends up in criminal court at some point.
And yet none of the issues people care about are actually being addressed.
We expect that shifting oversight of pedicabs from DCWP to TLC will bring about the licensing and enforcement changes required for a healthy industry, but only if additional resources are provided to that agency to do it the right way.
This hearing represents a chance for the council to pass public policy solutions that have the full support of almost all parties who care about this issue.
We were able to confirm that when we had our roundtable and wrote our report.
I thank you very much for your consideration.