via e-mail from David A. Kulczyk
In 1994, Seattle City Council Member Martha Choe tried to license the city's messengers. The plan was that all bike messengers were to pay a $25.00 fee to be able to ride. A hunting license type tag would be wore on the messengers back. Any citizen could report a messenger for reckless or illegal riding. The messenger would then lose their right to work.
The Bicycle Messengers of Seattle organized several different ways.
1) We contacted the media and explained our position in a positive and "gee whiz, I'm just a working guy" manner.
2) We made small flyers explaining what the proposal was all about, asking fellow citizens to call the mayor (his phone number was on the flyer) and tell him what a waste of city money the proposal is. We then left the flyers with every receptionist, mailroom clerks, court clerks & anyone else who showed sympathy or hated the local government. You'd be surprise how many lawyers supported us.
3) We went to the hearing on mass and explained to the council committee, just how unfair the proposal was, just how poor we were. There were over 70 messengers & 2 citizens who spoke against the plan. There was only 1 citizen & a traffic police officer (no doubt planted by the powerful Councilperson Choe) who spoke in favor of the plan.
4) We did a head count of all the messengers in Seattle. There was never more than 100 messengers on the street at any time. In contrast, 3,500 people rode bicycles into downtown Seattle every working day! This information was from the city itself. The messengers were out-numbered by non-messengers 35 to 1! To the average citizen everyone riding a bike and carrying a bag was a messenger. We stressed that we were the professionals, who cared about our own well-being & our jobs.
5) We figured that in order to collect $2,500 in revenue, the city would have to spend $100,000 for personel, office space & enforcement.
6) The proposal was worded in a way that would allow citizens to enforce laws and write tickets, a job that only the police can do.
The proposal never made it out of committee. Martha Choe ended up looking like a bully, picking on the working class.
The next election, a bike messenger ran against Councilperson Choe and got 20% of the vote while only spending $1000.00!
If you have comments or suggestions, email me at messvilleto@yahoo.com