The chair also expressed support for increasing insurance but later acknowledged concerns about barriers. On horse carriages, she favored option 2 (level set at 30 permits) and emphasized the need for a pilot program for electric carriages, aiming for fall 2026 to gather data. She also noted the importance of addressing the lost holiday season revenue for horse carriage operators.
Good morning, everyone. The time is now 2.03 p.m. on when on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026. And we'll call this meeting of the Transportation Infrastructure Committee to order. Madam Clerk, can you please read the role? Councilmember Corr. Councilmember Mungia. President. Councilmember Alderete Gavito? Here. Councilmember Spears. Chair McKee Rodriguez. Present. Chair, we have quorum. Wonderful. We'll start off with approval of the meeting minutes of the February 3rd, 2026 committee meeting. I'll understand a motion for approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor. Aye. Wonderful. Up next, we have briefing and discussion on the vehicle for hire industry. We do have several members of the public signed up to speak. Each speaker will be given two minutes to speak. And if you yield your time to uh to folk the max, you'll be able to speak as six. So I understand the first speaker will be George Garcia. You'll have six minutes, followed by George Mary. Okay. I serve on the transportation. I serve on the transportation advisory board. Uh we this issue was brought up before. We all voted on it. It passed unanimously, not to make any changes. It was then brought up. Um they had two meetings having to do with stakeholders. The stakeholders didn't have seem to have any problems with it the way the system is set right now. The issue that I see is if it's not broken, why why are we fixing it? Who says it's broken? Uh my wife, who owns her own company, which is called Crystal, that I have nothing to do with, started with the same regulations in chapter 33, 16, 18 years ago. She followed the same rules that all the everybody else who's in the industry, and I don't understand why are we trying to change or make an exception. Y'all just passed the deal with the Marvel project. Four billion dollars, supposed to be income for the city for the benefit of the city of San Antonio. You have an industry that is doing fine, okay, but you want to change it. Why? Where's that eagerness? If the car's not broken, that's like you're going to get a set of windshield wipers. Instead of buying the windshield wipers for your car, oh, I'm just gonna throw away the car because the wipers ain't working right. Does that make sense? Y'all are very intelligent people.