County’s Free Recruit Rides Challenged by Taxi Advocate

CAPE MAY – Freedom, oh freedom. It’s foremost in the minds of Coast Guard recruits as they near the end of basic training’s seventh week. That milestone, as they begin the final week before graduation, means one day off-base from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
To recruits who have experienced the most rigorous training of their young lives, liberty is sweet. It takes on almost surreal meaning. Liberty is a day to gorge oneself on fast-food, cheeseburgers, french fries, hoagies (forget the calories), a leisurely cup of coffee, shopping in big-box stores, taking in local sites. Those recruits, outfitted in dress uniforms, often head for Rio Grande, southern Cape May County’s shopping mecca.
Awaiting recruits outside the gate of Training Center Cape May on Saturday is a Cape May County Fare Free Transportation bus, operated by a part-time driver. It has operated about a month, according to Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton. The county has provided free rides on Saturday from the Training Center in the morning, in two loops to Wal-Mart, Kmart, ShopRite and Washington Street Mall. Another loop starts pickups in Rio Grande about 4:30 p.m. returning them to the base.
Thornton, an Air Force veteran, and Vince DePrinzio, a Vietnam veteran, believe it’s the least the county can do for young recruits beginning their military service.
Barry Felice of North Cape May, a former taxicab operator, chided freeholders March 25 on behalf of area taxi owners. “I was asked by some taxi operators to look into the matter of Fare Free Transportation picking up Coast Guard recruits,” Felice said.
“These guys depend on this income. They are struggling. Some are in foreclosure, having financial trouble. So when they showed up and found out Fare Free was stealing their customers, they were quite upset. I was upset for them,” Felice told the board.
Taxi companies are experiencing lean times in the present economy, he said. They are faced with numerous regulations and high insurance premiums, Felice added. Additionally, each municipality has its own taxi regulations. That matter Felice addressed in 2010 when he asked freeholders to consider a countywide taxi license. Nothing has changed.
Felice cited a March 4 letter from Lt. Cmdr. Scott Rae, regimental officer, at the training center to Lisa D’Amico, director of Fare Free Transportation. That letter focused on a variety of problems recruits experienced when using taxis. Felice said, “I thought some bad apples caused the problem.”
Among problems cited:
• Taxis would not drop recruits off at specific locations. A driver told recruits when he left them at Routes 9 and 47 in Rio Grande they had to walk the rest of the way to Wal-Mart.
• Some cab drivers require payment in advance for a return ride to the base. Then they never returned for the recruits when called.
• Unregulated fees which vary from cab to cab, no meters so recruits have no idea what was the fare.
• Dirty cabs, some lacking sufficient seat belts.
• Two female recruits told of a driver who used “inappropriate language in a sexual nature. He grabbed one by the hand,” and “kept talking about making sure they tip well.”
“On average, recruits are paying nearly $50,000 per year for transportation for off-base liberty,” Rae wrote.
Felice asked Freeholder Will Morey about his part in bringing Fare Free Transportation to the base. Morey replied “I was involved with the Coast Guard with it. It was part of the Coast Guard Community effort.”
The county is seeking designation as a Coast Guard Community, a recognition few counties possess.
“Did you talk to anybody?” Felice asked Morey. “The taxis? I did not,” he replied.
“This whole thing is aggravating,” Felice said. “You are supposed to represent us. Nobody called us (taxi drivers).
“The issue with the Coast Guard is really a very sad issue,” said Thornton. “There are more than a few bad apples. They have had difficulty for a period of years. You may have tried to correct it, and you did it in good faith, but it’s not fixed. It hasn’t been fixed all these years. These young recruits have been victimized here. I speak for myself. They have been victimized.”
“What I hear you saying, a trip from the Coast Guard base to Rio Grande, at $40 seems pretty excessive to me. If you want to go to Wal-Mart they drop you off on Route 9 and you walk to Wal-Mart. Pay for the return trip, they call and don’t show up,” Thornton added.
“Those taxi cab drivers do not want it (Rae’s letter) public and released with the list of discrepancies. We didn’t steal them, those personnel, they lost their clientele,” said Thornton. “Those taxicabs lost their clientele because they were not policing themselves.
“I can tell you, as a veteran, in good faith, I can’t sit and let those young recruits be victimized and taken advantage of by what was happening down there at the Coast Guard base,” Thornton continued.
“Will Morey was the lead on this, working, trying to get us recognized as a Coast Guard Community. This doesn’t bid very well for the County of Cape May to have that kind of poor service and activity, those recruits being victims. I recognize the taxi cab drivers are not getting rich, but I can tell you what, those recruits are not making much money either. We all know. I can tell you, I remember what I was making. We didn’t make money being in the military,” Thornton said.
“I will tell you what; I think the majority of taxicabs have done a real disservice to the Coast Guard personnel. That’s exactly how I feel,” Thornton said.
“We can’t restrict them. We can’t stop the bad guys from going there. We don’t have the authority. We can’t take their cab license from them. I am more than willing to give those young recruits a ride when they get a day’s liberty. For us, that Coast Guard base generates $176 million revenue to the County of Cape May. We will do what’s necessary to make sure that they’re treated well at the Coast Guard base,” said Thornton.
“Understand one thing,” said Freeholder E. Marie Hayes, a retired investigator from the County Prosecutor’s Office. “We are not taking them door-to-door. It is simply a route that gives the ability to go to three or four different places in a small amount of time, because that’s what they have. I also want to point out the letter by (Lt.) Cmdr. Rae points out a very small portion of complaints. Most of these young people are impressionable and scared to death because they are in boot camp. I can probably say we didn’t hear a lot of complaints they had because they would not bring them forward because they were scared.”
Hayes noted, if drivers were charging recruits double and not returning them to the base, “It’s called theft.”
Felice countered that he had been “down there (the base) many a weekend and seen the drivers treating them (recruits) with courtesy. They will get in the cab to go to Wal-Mart. They will hand them their own (cell) phones.”
Vince DePrinzio, a Vietnam veteran who was at the meeting to earlier present a check to a Boy Scout for a project, spoke “on behalf of myself and 8,900 veterans in the county and the Coast Guard recruits. I am well aware of what goes on there. I am a personal friend of (Lt.) Cmdr. Rae, and the problems have been going on a long time. It’s ridiculous to even charge the Coast Guard kids to go six miles to Rio Grande. I understand they’ve got to make a living. When those recruits come out of boot camp they sign a blank check that means they can give their life for this country. That’s the least you can do for these kids.”
“Cape May County came to us and asked how they could help the lowest ranking, least-paid members more. We mentioned the cost of taxis,” said Coast Guard Training Center spokesman CWO Donnie Brzuska.
It is a “benefit…to ease the economic burden of our members who greatly appreciated the county came forward with Fare Free Transportation,” Brzuska added. “We greatly appreciate the support of Cape May County providing the transportation to our most junior and least-paid members.”
He underscored the command had “not discouraged recruits from using taxi service. They may continue to use taxi service in some form or another in the region.”
Recruits who desire to visit Wildwood, for example, must use a taxi, since free transportation is not provided there, only to Rio Grande and to downtown Cape May.
Stops by Fare Free Transportation bus are at Wal-Mart, Kmart and ShopRite.
“They are going into the community to spend their hard-earned money,” said Brzuska. “They may be eating five burgers or buying coffee at Starbucks or going to a movie, things they haven’t gotten to do in seven or eight weeks,” he added.
Recruits are limited to a 30-mile radius on their day of liberty, Brzuska said. That precludes out-of-county jaunts, but could mean a visit to the Wildwoods, Stone Harbor or other areas serviced by taxis.
Felice continues to believe taxi licensing reform on a statewide level would address much of the problem. He advocates a countywide taxi license so that cab companies would not have to get every driver individually licensed which also means a background check for each municipality, a time-consuming and costly endeavor.
He also believes state reform is needed to regulate limousines, which operate in municipalities that lack taxi regulations, and have drivers secure a chauffeur designation, not a taxi driver license.