Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Taxi Parking topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Village keeps taxi-parking hearing open after nonemergency medical transport operator seeks exemption
Summary
At the May 5 Village of Vermont Board of Trustees meeting, an operator of a preauthorized nonemergency medical transportation service asked the board to exempt those vehicles from a proposed amendment to the village's taxi-parking rules; the board kept the public hearing open and moved it to June 4.
The Village of Vermont Board of Trustees on May 5 kept a public hearing open on a proposed amendment to village code chapter 210 that would restrict taxi parking in residential districts after a local nonemergency medical transportation operator asked for an exemption.
Angel Nam Noon, who identified himself as owner-operator of Administrator Consulting Group, told trustees his company has operated in the community for decades and that its rides are “preapproved, preauthorized by the New York State Department of Health.” He said the vehicles do not solicit passengers at the curb and that drivers park vehicles at private property where they live. “We do not pick on the street. . . . We transport a specific group of people with a preapproved to from the houses to their medical low income disabled,” he said.
Noon said his operation runs about 15 vehicles from his house and that the proposed amendment could jeopardize those services if the code treats his vehicles the same as street-hail taxis or ride-share vehicles. He asked trustees to add language exempting “vehicles used exclusively for prescheduled non emergency medical transportation services operating under the New York State Department of Health Medicaid program.”
Board members asked questions about how the vehicles are identified and about recent yard paving at Noon’s property. A village staff member who spoke during the hearing said the yard paving prompted a zoning violation notice; Noon disputed the scale of the work and the number of vehicles described. Trustees said they wanted to “dig deeper” into both the parking and the zoning-violation issues before acting.
Trustees voted to keep the hearing open and move it to Wednesday, June 4, at 5 p.m. for further review. The board recorded the motion and called for further study of language that would distinguish prescheduled, preauthorized medical-transport vehicles from taxicabs and ride-share vehicles in the proposed local law. No final policy was adopted at the May 5 meeting.
The continued hearing signals the board will consider whether to craft a carve-out for nonemergency medical transportation providers who are contracted through the New York State Department of Health and who park vehicles at private residences.
