Board revokes Executive Taxi’s color scheme, suspends medallion for one year

The San Francisco Board of Appeals on July 14 upheld most of the Municipal Transportation Agency’s enforcement action against Executive Taxi, revoking the company’s color-scheme permit and suspending owner Wes Hollis’s medallion for one year.

The action followed a contested hearing during which the SFMTA described years of alleged violations, including operating spare vehicles simultaneously, use of an apparently counterfeit medallion on one spare vehicle and failing to carry workers’ compensation insurance for an extended period. Jarvis Murray, the agency representative, warned the board that failing to discipline serious breaches would undercut enforcement: “If Mr. Hollis walks out of this room today without any form of discipline, the message … the transportation code is meaningless,” he said.

Hollis’s counsel, Heidi Machin, disputed the department’s characterization and urged the board to adopt a lesser remedy. Machin said the company had sometimes passed savings on to drivers and that severe fines would threaten a small operator. “We respectfully ask that this matter be dismissed,” she said in closing arguments, arguing past practice supported smaller penalties.

Commissioners focused their questioning on the evidence supporting each alleged violation and on the appropriate proportional penalty. Board members expressed concern about the apparent scale and duration of the violations — the department presented counts of simultaneous use on many days across several years and a calculation tying unpaid workers’ compensation to an estimated $16,000 savings.

Vice President Kendall Goh moved to uphold revocation of the color-scheme permit and to suspend (rather than revoke) Hollis’s medallion for one year; the motion passed 4–1, with Commissioner Huang dissenting. The board recorded that formal findings will be adopted at a later date.

The decision leaves Executive Taxi’s medallion in place but bars the company’s color-scheme operations for the foreseeable term of the suspension; the effect on drivers who leased cars from the color scheme will depend on how the SFMTA administratively manages the suspended affiliation going forward. The agency said it would prepare findings and implement any follow-up enforcement or remedial steps called for by the written decision.