The Belize City Council’s attempt to alter the existing Belize City bus schedule, and obstruct the Lake Independence Cooperative’s legally operating their unique business of “one dollar” taxi transportation for the poor working class of the Lake Independence area of Belize City has taken front seat in the media.
Amandala sat down with two of the City’s public service transportation providers, Lopez Shuttle Services, owned by Carlos Lopez, 44, and the Lake Independence Cooperative Association, on Tuesday, April 27, as they voiced their displeasure and concerns on the issues threatening their businesses.
Lopez has a history of battling not only the Belize City Council, but also his competitor, the Novelo brothers, over routes, schedules and the operation of his buses on the city streets.
“Enough is enough,” Lopez said.
Lopez told us that his decision to fight was heightened when recently the City Council told him that they intended to rearrange the city buses routes as of Monday, May 3.
According to Lopez who pioneered a new bus route connecting the North side to the South side of the City, including the Landivar, Central American Boulevard and downtown area, he is now being bullied by the Council into abandoning his unique route and adopting one prescribed for the Lake Independence area.
“They are trying to intimidate me into accepting this new route, which would place me in the Lake Independence area. However, the Lake I Shuttle Service is already operating in that region of the City, over 30 of them, and I have NO intentions of fighting against my fellow men that have families also to feed. The decision of the City Council, personally I feel, is unfair for the poor working class,” Lopez explained.
The decision of the Council to relocate Lopez to an area that already has enough transportation services, provided by the Lake I Shuttle Service, is what has driven both concerned parties to join forces.
“I have joined forces with the Lake I Shuttle Service and we are prepared to stand up for our rights!” Lopez said.
“The City Council not only wants to give the Novelos brothers my designed bus route, but the majority of the territory as well, under the different bus companies owned by [the Novelos brothers], which include the Belize In-transit Service and Belize Metro. That is a major problem because it shows a bias of the Council for the business of public service providers, and I will NOT accept this!” Lopez stated.
The other element of the problem involves the Lake I Shuttle Service Association, which includes 20 official members and 30 overall operating taxis. Amandala spoke with a few representatives of this association, including the manager Zaiden Santiago, 37, executive manager Joseph Duce, 55, and one of the members Lionel Longsworth, 46.
According to these representatives, they, along with the other members, were all operating the Lake Independence route since all the way back in August 2009, but have registered the name of Lake Independence Shuttle a little over two weeks now.
Since then the cooperative members have been distributing letters to the Belize City Council addressed to Mayor Zenaida Moya-Flowers, requesting a meeting with the Council and their association, so as to acquire rights to that specific region [Lake I] and for a road service permit so that they could continue providing the service to the people of the said area.
Amandala reviewed copies of the association’s letters to the Mayor dating back to August of last year and most recently, Tuesday, April 27, 2010.
“We have tried gaining some sort of communication with the Council; however they have never acknowledged, replied or much less entertained us in our pursuit of a meeting with them,” Santiago stated.
Nevertheless, in a City Council meeting held on Tuesday at 7:00 p.m., Councilor Wayne Usher, who is responsible for public health, tourism and traffic, said, “. . . The dollar taxis are illegal; they are not taxis or buses, …” and furthermore, that they [the Lake I Shuttle] have never tried to contact the Council for a meeting.
Santiago, manager of the cooperative, however, explained: “The Council has fought us in so many ways to try and eliminate us, and one of the ways they came up with was that, if you’re not a member of a union or cooperative, or an association and specific taxi stand, you wouldn’t be granted a renewal of your license.
“In our efforts to alleviate this problem, we [the members of this cooperative] decided to form a company and we went ahead to register the Lake I Shuttle. Since then we have been trying in different ways to get a road service permit to occupy Lake I, Pound Yard and downtown, but were told by the Council that taxis cannot get a road service permit.
“We have tried to attain the C1 license (which is the license for operating a taxi), but were told that the C1 is not being issued anymore, which, in my view, is a violation of our civil rights, because we have a right to work and if we choose to be a taxi man, then we should be facilitated with the tools to do so.”
This entire service provided specifically for the Lake I community, as Santiago explained, came about because the need was always there. “The main reason why the dollar taxi came about was due to the inadequate services they had before. …If you think about it, the vans are a lot smaller, yet people understand; they don’t mind getting out to allow someone to get out, and then getting back in.”
The association reiterates that the dollar taxi came about because the poorer class of people cannot afford to pay six or seven dollars to a regular taxi to commute to and from their daily jobs and schools.
The customers of this association, after being informed of the threat by the City Council to stop the dollar taxis from operating, without hesitation signed the petition to grant the permits. The petition has garnered over one thousand customer signatures thus far.
“We won’t back off, we will continue alongside Lopez Shuttle; we will back him [Lopez] anyway. And we know that he will do the same until it reaches the end!” Duce, cooperative executive manager, said.
The law of taxi van operation states that the seating should not be more than seven persons, which is six persons plus the one driver, a law by which all the members state they have abided. The members say that they have also made sure to keep within the context of the law in regards to operating their taxi services, and furthermore, cannot understand why the City Council has denied them the right to run a service that is so needed for the poor.
During the City Council meeting, Longsworth, cooperative member, told the Mayor: “. . . [We] have bills to pay and families to support. …On behalf of all the members, we will NOT give into it, and further, I admire the Mayor. When they attacked her, she defended herself up to the point of going to court. Madam, we are planning on doing the same!”
The Mayor agreed to meet the parties and listen to their concerns.
“Let’s set a date for next week. …”
A date, however, was not officially agreed on for the meeting. Any such meeting the Mayor said would have to include the other taxi associations, as well as herself, Deputy Mayor Phillip Willoughby and transport and traffic counselors.
The dollar taxi operators are not happy with the incorporation of the regular taxis operators in this (promised) meeting by the Mayor.
“I don’t think it is fair for her to say that she will give us a meeting and then invite other associations into it. We have worked so hard to be listened to, and our business is unique. We have nothing to do with the other taxis, and we are not infringing on their territory, so it is unfair. …We still have to wait and see if the meeting will ever come to fruition also, because no date has been set as yet. And maybe it was just a little brush-off, because it was a live public confrontation on our part to the City Council,” Santiago said after the meeting had concluded.
Lopez also told Amandala today, Thursday, that to his knowledge, the Council is still seeking to put into effect the new bus routes, and that they [City Council] had contacted him yesterday to inform him that the deadline for his submission to operate in the Lake I area (which Lopez out rightly refuses to accept) was today.
Both Lopez and the Lake I Cooperative say that they will stand firmly side by side against the injustice by the Belize City Council, and that they refuse to fight against each other for rights over the Lake Independence area. They don’t intend to sit back, they say, while the Council allows a monopoly of the transportation system by their competitor, the Novelos, to continue.