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This is an excellent presentation delivered to the City of Austin about exactly what you outline. I highly recommend it! http://www.austintexas.gov/blog/false-prosperity-hidden-cost-suburban-sprawl

Actually, no. The ordinance in question is 20151217-075:

https://www.austintexas.gov/ed...

And it applies only to "Transportation Network Companies" such as Uber and Lyft, NOT legacy taxi companies. Also, there's a lot more in there than just background checks. There's a host of other restrictions and requirements in there, including: restrictions on dynamic (surge) pricing, geofencing restricting them from providing service to special events, a money grab, a demand social "outreach events", and a requirement for access to their customer and user data.

the city can not be responsible for the irresponsible decisions that people make while under the influence of alcohol that places the safety of others at risk.

When the city forces breweries to provide parking for their customers, then I think the city is at least partially responsible for the predictable drunk driving crashes that result, don't you?

And how is it not entrapment when the city encourages a behavior and then prosecutes people for doing it?

Ann Kitchen has been in the tank for the local Cab industry since the beginning.

While the Austin City Council recently went to a district council organization (unlike the previous all At Large), and the more sensible suburbs now have representation, there are are still enough whacked out, loony Leftists left to keep this kind of crap front and center.

Example: they recently had a Bond election for urban rail, light rail, some kind of stupid rail system designed to benefit the core of the city, to the tune of almost a billion dollars. Naturally, the voters told the council to go fuck itself. Now, the council is trying to figure out ways to do it anyway.

The Austin City Council can best be described as kind of like the DNC, where how you vote means shit, it's the "super delegates" that make the call.

The city council could pass an ordinance, which APD could then enforce, but as it stands, unless the ordinance has been passed recently, no such ordinance exists.

That said, the parks and recreation department did recently decide to ban all R/C airplanes in all parks (page 11), with the only current exceptions being the HCAM and ARCA fields. That said, those rules only apply to parks -- if you fly from a street, or your driveway or a school or something, they don't apply.

(Oddly enough, I don't think anybody even knew about the ban. Based on the response I got from the city, I was the only person city wide to comment on it (and no, I was not in favor.)

In any event, if somebody is flying over a crowd, they might be able to find a law to charge somebody with. But if not over people and not over a park, not in a dangerous manner ... I don't see where they'd have any say in the matter.

I just don't see your system working. If I have a stand-alone solar array, and I charge my car with it using none of your resources -- on what basis do you think you can tax me? Because you feel entitled to it?

Let me tell you about the fees/taxes from my municipal electricity provider, Austin Energy.

• Community Benefit Charge : This is a per kWh charge that provides "$1.72 per 1,000 kWh to fund utility bill discounts for low income customers", "93 cents per 1,000 kWh to maintain and power the streetlights and traffic signals in Austin and all communities served by Austin Energy." and "$2.89 per 1,000 kWh for energy efficiency programs". I'm not sure what the connection is between my electricity usage and helping low income customers but I can't help but think about the food I'm taking off someone's table every time I replace an incandescent bulb with a CFL.
• Code Compliance : No idea why this is on a utility bill, but there it is.
• Clean Community Fee : This isn't trash collection, that's a separate item. Undeveloped property owners with no utilities don't reap these benefits apparently.
• Transportation User Fee : It's assumed I have car and this is a road use tax. It's possible to get it waived by telling them I don't have a car. The good news is 4-car families pay the same amount I do.

I have no problem funding the services above but these are really hidden taxes that should be part of property taxes. My consumption is low enough(under 500kWh/month) that my actual electricity usage is less than 50% of my bill. The rest, taxes.

I just don't see your system working. If I have a stand-alone solar array, and I charge my car with it using none of your resources -- on what basis do you think you can tax me? Because you feel entitled to it?

Let me tell you about the fees/taxes from my municipal electricity provider, Austin Energy.

• Community Benefit Charge : This is a per kWh charge that provides "$1.72 per 1,000 kWh to fund utility bill discounts for low income customers", "93 cents per 1,000 kWh to maintain and power the streetlights and traffic signals in Austin and all communities served by Austin Energy." and "$2.89 per 1,000 kWh for energy efficiency programs". I'm not sure what the connection is between my electricity usage and helping low income customers but I can't help but think about the food I'm taking off someone's table every time I replace an incandescent bulb with a CFL.
• Code Compliance : No idea why this is on a utility bill, but there it is.
• Clean Community Fee : This isn't trash collection, that's a separate item. Undeveloped property owners with no utilities don't reap these benefits apparently.
• Transportation User Fee : It's assumed I have car and this is a road use tax. It's possible to get it waived by telling them I don't have a car. The good news is 4-car families pay the same amount I do.

I have no problem funding the services above but these are really hidden taxes that should be part of property taxes. My consumption is low enough(under 500kWh/month) that my actual electricity usage is less than 50% of my bill. The rest, taxes.