Illegal UBER Driver Stephanie Franz, courtesy CBS Boston
In an article at Seacoast Online, Portsmouth acting police chief Frank Warchol uses his best, “I’m just doing my job” excuse for his department targeting 63-year old grandmother Stephanie Franz a SECOND time for what is now a total of $1,500 in two tickets. Franz is accused of driving people somewhere in Portsmouth without the city’s permission slip.
The protectionist racket will continue on unabated after Monday night’s city council meeting, where there were people who testified in favor and against driving freedom. Christopher David had a volunteer read his letter to the council, as he could not attend due to his wife having a baby. Here’s the feed from the council chambers, starting with the people addressing the council:
The second speaker is a taxi company owner who accuses UBER of “stealing” money from him, since he’s obediently jumped through the city’s hoops. However, he does suggest (perhaps sarcastically) to repeal all ordinances so his companies can lower their prices, which I think most libertarians would love to see. After him is a former fireman who suggests that UBER drivers could be a danger to passengers due to misdemeanor convictions which the city’s regulations prohibit within seven years of the background check. He also claims that the state background check is more thorough, but the Free Uber page on facebook says otherwise: (more…)
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The Portsmouth mayor, Robert Lister, is mad that people are trying to use the system to change the system – a typical complaint of people inside the system. First they get mad at people like Chris who do civil disobedience. They insist that civil disobedience is the wrong way to do things and tell us that we should work inside the system to change things. Then when we work inside the system, they get upset that we’re “wasting their time”. In Lister’s case, he said this in a Seacoast Online article:
“We have rules…They have to follow the rules. For them to keep changing the rules is not appropriate.”
It’s a repeat of what we’ve seen happen here in Keene. The people who support the status quo hate ANY action to change things in ways that reduce their power, whether those actions are happening inside or outside the system.
Will Monday’s meeting have an effect on the taxi-favoring outgoing city council or will they do as the Keene council did with the BEARCAT in 2012 and ignore the people in favor of the taxi oligopoly?
He may not be a true libertarian, but Rand Paul scored some points for this video where he interviews and openly supports Christopher David’s UBER civil disobedience, for which Chris is now facing a felony charge. Here’s what Rand posted along with the video:
I met with Christopher David, an Uber driver arrested for trying to make a living. Listen to our interview and stay tuned for the Facebook live stream coming up! Christopher is driving me to my rally in Portsmouth, NH.
The city of Keene has (again) quietly stuck their proposed parking rate and fine AND hours-of-enforcement increases into tonight’s FOP committee agenda. It’s item #8 here.
This may be our last chance to stop this proposed increase – as you may recall, at previous hearings petitions with hundreds of signatures of people downtown, including dozens of business owners opposed the proposed increases. This has not stopped the city from continuing to return and push the idea again and again.
Tonight the decision will be in the hands of the FOP committee which meets starting at 6:30pm on the 2nd floor of city hall at 3 Washington St. in Keene.
Committee meetings are the only time they will actually hear from the people on any matter – when this goes to the full council there will be no further public comment.
Please come out tonight and let these councilors on the committee know that parking meters and fines hurt downtown businesses, or however else you’d like to frame your thoughts on the issue.
JP recorded a brief interview with Chris before he turned himself in to be arrested for the first time in his life. Chris points out in the interview that he’s only turning himself in so the cops don’t bust in during his fiancee’s upcoming home birth and take him away then:
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