Hardball tactics gain approval of watered-down ride-hailing rules

SHARE Hardball tactics gain approval of watered-down ride-hailing rules
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A softer set of regulations for ride-hailing services and their drivers was approved Wednesday by the Chicago City Council. | File photo

Mayor Rahm Emanuel played hardball Wednesday — and made no apologies for it — to muscle through a hard-fought compromise that will allow the city to license, but not fingerprint drivers for Uber and Lyft .

Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd), one of the taxicab industry’s staunchest City Council supporters, tried to use a parliamentary maneuver to delay consideration of ordinance that aldermen saw for the first time just hours before Wednesday’s vote.

Waguespack wasn’t happy about a deal that put off fingerprinting for at least six months pending an “independent study” and substituted a one-year reprieve for a requirement that 5 percent of ride-hailing vehicles be accessible to customers with disabilities.

Read more about efforts to regulate Uber, Lyft in Chicago

At first, Emanuel refused to recognize Waguespack to give Transportation Committee Chairman Anthony Beale (9th) time to describe the compromise.

When Waguespack renewed his motion to delay the vote for one meeting, Emanuel dug into a bag of political tricks in a way he has never done during his five-year tenure as mayor.

Emanuel moved to adjourn the City Council meeting and summon aldermen back into session during a special meeting at 1 p.m. Friday.

Midway through the roll call to adjourn, Waguespack begrudgingly withdrew his motion. He acknowledged that there was no sense blowing a Friday afternoon in the summer when the mayor clearly had the votes.

“Your ordinance for the ride-share came to us . . . early this morning. It removed all of the protections  . . . To come forward with an ordinance that takes all of that out . . . and expect aldermen to vote on it is not the way to run the City Council,” Waguespack said.

Ald. Willie Cochran (20th) countered, “We don’t read a lot of things that come before us.”

The ordinance was subsequently approved by a vote of 36 to 12. But the bitter feelings left behind by Emanuel’s use of the strong-arm tactics he was known for in Washington D.C. are likely to linger.

Ald. Nick Sposato (36th) called the entire meeting an “embarrassment.”

Ald. John Arena (45th) made a thinly-veiled reference to the fact that Emanuel’s brother is an Uber investor.

“Stop letting corporations write our laws to benefit them at the detriment of our communities that are suffering. We are letting them self-regulate,” Arena said.

“It drives us further towards the Walmart economy. Everything’s cheaper. But you’re not safer, and the service isn’t better. They take the money away, and we lose.”

After the meeting, Emanuel made no apologies for playing the political heavy. It was the price that needed to be paid in the name of progress that stands in stark contrast to the marathon budget stalemate in Springfield, the mayor said.

“I know when there’s a policy difference and you want to use a procedure to just postpone . . . And I decided we were gonna use a procedure to make progress,” the mayor said.

“Nothing here was a surprise. Nothing would have changed . . . People knew how they were gonna vote . . . I’ve been around working for two presidents, Congress, here as mayor for five years. I know when somebody calls a procedural objection what it’s really about. It was a procedural motion to postpone something that was inevitable. We met that procedure with a procedure to make progress on the essential.”

The other sharing economy showdown at Wednesday’s City Council meeting — to tax and regulate Airbnb and other home-sharing services — did not require any strong-arm tactics.

The vote was 43 to 7.

It came after months of debate and countless mayoral concessions aimed at balancing the divergent interests of Chicagoans who rent out their homes to supplement their incomes and aldermen whose congested wards have been inundated with short-term renters and the bachelor party rowdyism they sometimes bring.

“We made changes because we were listening to people. It can’t be said that it’s a rubber stamp when they offer ideas and some of `em we adopt,” the mayor said.

Emanuel said his fundamental goal was the 4 percent surcharge that’s expected to generate $2 million a year to fight chronic homelessness. He called that a model for other cities to follow.

Ald. Michele Smith, whose Lincoln Park ward is inundated with 500 Airbnb listings, strongly disagreed.

Without limits on the number of home-sharing units, Smith said it won’t be enough to stop the “runaway train” that’s Airbnb.

After fighting for changes, downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) supported the compromise. But he’s concerned about enforcement.

“I don’t trust this company, and we may not have the tools we need to police the ordinance,” Reilly said.

Reilly accused Airbnb of “willfully breaking” his 2011 vacation rental ordinance and warned that when the company shows its “true colors” on this version, aldermen will be back to make more changes.

Airbnb had threatened to file a federal lawsuit  on grounds that federal law prohibits the city from holding internet companies responsible for hosts’ behavior.

But when Emanuel dropped that provision, the company embraced the regulations.

“We’re excited to see Chicago join the ranks of leading global cities that have worked to protect the right of everyday people to share their homes to make some extra money,” former Ald Will Burns (4th) a senior vice-president for Airbnb’s Midwest region, was quoted as saying in a statement.

Ald. Proco Joe Moreno (1st) added, “This is the Jetsons. We’re not going back to the Flintstones.”

Contributing: Natalie Watts

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