OSAGE BEACH, Mo. — A proposed ordinance that would regulate taxi and driver-for-hire services in Osage Beach and Lake Ozark hit several speed bumps last week.
At the Osage Beach Board of Aldermen meeting on Thursday, April 2, the board was slated to take up the issue for a first reading. But first, multiple people addressed the board during the Citizens Communications portion of the meeting. The majority said they operated taxi or driver-for-hire services in the area, and while most of them offered praise for the ordinance, they also expressed concerns about some of its requirements, and made suggestions for improvement.
David Meyers, of 365Cabs, said, “The regulations are very, very, very good.” Yet he was concerned that the ordinance’s requirement for drivers to carry commercial insurance was not necessarily identical to taxi or livery insurance, which he said was an important distinction.
City Attorney Ed Rucker said, in drafting the ordinance, the word “commercial” had been used because the bill shouldn’t limit to a specific type of activity. “We’re trying to use a broad brush here,” Rucker said.
Meyers emphasized the city should at the very least have a mechanism to ensure that taxi companies, when they register with the city, have the appropriate taxi insurance.
Later in the meeting, a clearly frustrated Alderman John Olivarri pointed out a taxi company could choose to carry insurance when it registers with the city, and then could drop its insurance shortly thereafter. He asked Ed Rucker to look into the issue and see how the city might be notified if the company dropped its insurance.
During citizen communications, other taxi company owners brought other issues to the board’s attention. Carl Cook, a resident of Kaiser, said he operates a “black car” service for high-end clients who would balk at riding in a vehicle that said “TAXI” or “CAB” on the side—which is one of the requirements within the ordinance.
The board seemed sympathetic to this issue, and Ed Rucker was instructed to look into ordinance amendments that would create a legal way for such a driver-for-hire service to operate, without being clearly labeled as a taxi or cab service.
Another operator, Steve Porto, said he had concerns about the requirement that a taxi not carry more passengers than its seat belt capacity. On cold nights, he said, “You gotta decide to put one or two more extra people in, or leave them out in the cold,” after all the bars have closed. Yet another taxi service operator claimed law enforcement officers have even overloaded his cab at the end of the night and told him to go.
The board members debated this issue later in the meeting, acknowledging that their proposed ordinance was stricter than state statute, which only requires adults in the front seats to be buckled—and therefore does not place a restriction on the number of individuals in the back seat, based on the number of seat belts. The aldermen agreed such a rule was not needed, and Ed Rucker amended the ordinance before the board approved the first reading.
A final issue brought up by Carl Cook was the requirement that the cab driver deliver his or her passenger to the agreed-upon destination. Cook said on occasion, a passenger can become unruly, and he needs to simply take them to a safe place and get them out of the vehicle.
In such a situation, Ed Rucker said later, the driver should simply call 911. He pointed out the law should be concerned with protecting the passenger, and that removing the destination requirement might leave the passenger exposed.
After citizen comments, during debate about the issue, Olivarri asked why the issues that were brought up had not been provided for in the initial writing of the ordinance. He indicated a letter sent to Rucker and other city staff had addressed “every one of these issues.”
“We don’t write legislation on behalf of private parties,” Rucker countered.
He explained that he wrote the ordinance with four specific issues brought to him by the mayor:
- That the driver is licensed.
- That the driver is insured.
- That there is an up-front disclosure of fees charged, and
- That there is a reciprocal permitting process between Lake Ozark and Osage Beach.
Ultimately, the aldermen approved the first reading of the bill, with the seatbelt amendment Rucker added during the meeting. He said he will take a closer look at the other recommended changes before the next meeting. He pointed out that because the cities of Lake Ozark and Osage Beach were working to have identical ordinances, the Lake Ozark Board of Aldermen would have to consider the same changes and agree upon ordinance language.
According to Rucker, the board can make amendments to the ordinance between the first and second readings.
