Once again, please explain why medallions are good

For a predominantly conservative area where people can be counted on to lament government meddling in the marketplace, it’s curious that no one except those who are affected has much to say when local government does it.

Specifically, no one except the taxi companies hit by Ocean City’s new medallion system has suggested that it isn’t local government’s job to reduce competition in that or any other business.

This is especially so when it’s done under the pretext of making everything better for everyone, including the customers of the cab companies that will have to cough up an extra $1,500 plus annual renewal fees to do business.

The medallion system being instituted by city officials will run some small operators out of town, which is an obvious goal of this exercise. But in dropping this bombshell on private business people – the installment payment plan doesn’t make it better – the council is attempting to manipulate the local transportation industry to suit its own standards.

That City Hall has done so in such a short time is interesting considering that it has spent more than a year trying to figure out how to reduce its own fleet of vehicles and still hasn’t come up with an answer.

Maybe the taxi business does need cleaning up, but the bottom line is that the medallion system won’t help driver-employees of cab companies and this is not a fee, but a tax. Cab passengers will be paying that tax at 20 cents a mile, the amount the city is allowing cab companies to raise their rates to offset this new financial burden.

It is difficult to see how the public benefits from paying more or how reduced competition will lead to a cleaner, nicer fleet. At the least, the council ought to come straight out and be clear about what it’s doing and why. If it can’t say it out loud, then it shouldn’t be doing it.