During last night’s regular meeting, the Nome City Council passed an amended resolution transferring three taxi cab licenses from EZ Cab to Mr. Kab after a bit of back and forth. The 5:30pm work session, however, was where most of the discussion on the issue happened.
Nome City Manager Tom Moran explained why the new version of the taxi cab license resolution involved new stipulations.
“So, we had to write this resolution in a certain way, because we couldn’t do it the same way we did last time, and then, the City attorney came back and said you probably shouldn’t be taking the number of licenses needed for the general good of the public into account when looking at the transfer,” summarized Moran.
When the Council met at the beginning of January, they voted down a resolution that would have transferred three taxi cab licenses from EZ Cab to Peter’s LLC, Mr. Kab. In order to avoid circumventing the Council’s wishes, a new version of the resolution was drafted. The new resolution involved only transferring two taxi licenses from EZ Cab to Mr. Kab and rescinding one license from EZ Cab and one from Nome Checker Cab to lower the total amount of taxi cab licenses in Nome.
Councilman Jerald Brown expressed his support of the new resolution but also addressed the need for a separate resolution regarding the number of taxi cabs out on the streets.
“I think this is a good resolution, for now,” stated Brown. “It accomplishes the transfer. It accomplishes the pairing of the number of permits, which I personally think should happen. But we should take a look at the total number of permits and the total amount of sales tax revenue generated by those permits, because that is a direct correlation to what wage the drivers are making.”
However, once the regular meeting began, the Council decided to amend the new taxi license resolution and then approve the transfer of all three taxi licenses from EZ Cab to Mr. Kab, which was the original proposal from the January 9th meeting.
Other business last night included an ordinance being passed which approved the Nome Joint Utility System’s operations and maintenance budget for 2017.
One of the last items on the Council’s agenda was a resolution to award the NSEDC Community Benefit Share funds. 13 organizations will receive a portion of the $150,000 total to satisfy their various financial needs.
The next City Council regular meeting is scheduled for February 13th at 7pm, but a separate work session could happen before then.
