By NICK BUDD
Hays Post
During Thursday’s Hays City Commission meeting, commissioners will discuss repealing certain taxi cab ordinances in the city code. City staff does not believe that the current process is a “good use of city resources,” according to a memo to commissioners.
The current ordinance requires each proposed business to pay an annual licensing fee of $10 as well as a $10 fee for the cost of each annual vehicle inspection. Businesses also are required to provide a $5 individual license fee per driver.
“We started looking into this because we were wrapping up hundreds of dollars worth of staff time in an application process that costs the business $25,” said City Manager Toby Dougherty. “I don’t think it’s a good productive use of time and that’s the reason we started looking at it.”
The current taxi cab licensing process requires the use of up to five city departments. When a taxi cab license application is presented to the city, they first conduct a background check on the driver. According to Assistant Police Chief Brian Dawson, the check simply identifies if any of the drivers are wanted in the city of Hays or in any other jurisdictions. The background checks also identifies information on their criminal background. This process alone can take up to two working hours and is valued at around $45.
“They may be more than capable of doing the job, but there might be some lesser misdemeanors that could go one way or the other,” said Dougherty.
Once the background checks are complete, the city manager’s office reviews the application and decides whether to approve it. It then is sent to the city commission, which votes on the approval of the application. Once these steps are taken, the vehicles are inspected and the IT department begins to create individual identification cards for each driver. The city estimates that these processes costs around $100, bringing the total amount to process one taxi cab business to around $146, far outside of the money provided by the business.
During last Thursday’s work session, commissioners and city staff also brought up some liability issues with the current policies, noting the process could mislead customers.
“Us licensing this makes it look like we are responsible for the businesses,” said Commissioner Ron Mellick. “It’s no different than whoever a plumber or electrician sends out. That is their choice and on their liability and not the city of Hays.”
There are currently two taxi cab businesses in the city of Hays.
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at City Hall. Click HERE for a complete agenda.