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Taxi union president beats PPA on its own court - literally
The Web site for the award-winning alternative weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper.
Taxi union president beats PPA on its own court literally
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| Credit: Media Mobilizing Project |
| After two years of facing charges, Blount's name is cleared. |
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
How many seas must a white dove sail?
How many times must the leader of Philadelphia's taxi drivers union clear himself of the same charges before the PPA will deign to even meet with him?
Who knows although you'd think we'd have an answer to the last question, after Taxi Workers Alliance president Ron Blount was acquitted in PPA court yesterday on two-year-old charges of assaulting a passenger.
In September, 2008, the newly elected Blount was hit with a felony charge - one that had been thrown out and then re-instated of allegedly attacking and choking passenger Megan Saunders after she tried to pay with a credit card.
Last October, after a year of facing that charge, Blount was acquitted by a jury in Common Pleas court.
At the time, the Phialdelphia Parking Authority, which oversees the taxi industry and which has had an acrimonious relationship with Blount from the time he was elected to lead the TWA didn't hesitate to use the charges as a talking point against him. As I reported in my profile of Blount and the TWA in September '08:
The morning after Blount was elected during the time when he faced only misdemeanor charges the Metro quoted PPA taxi division chief James Ney, saying he was "quite concerned with the president they've elected, who has outstanding charges against him ... We're wondering why the drivers would elect someone like that."
When Blount was fully acquitted by a Common Pleas court in October, the PPA pursued its own case against him in yes, it exists PPA's own administrative court, where PPA judges (whose salaries are paid by the PPA) have the power to impose fines, revoke cab licenses, etc.
In the two years since his original criminal charges, the PPA has declined to meet with Blount citing, since last October, the administrative case against him.
Yesterday, Blount appeared before a PPA judge to defend himself, again, against charges filed by Saunders who, she revealed on the stand, had been driven to court yetserday by the PPA.
The judge found Blount innocent of everything except failing to take a credit card a violation for which he may have to pay a $250 fine.
So: is the PPA, after Blount's two acquittals, ready at last to meet with him?
Absolutely kind of. The PPA will meet with him, Jim Ney, director of the taxi and limo divsion of the PPA, told the Metro today . . . "but thats not going to happen until we see the actual opinion."
[...] Taxi union president beats PPA on its own court literally [...]
Blount is not credible, didn't believe him then or now
it s only a matter of time , the PPA are a legal mafia, it s about time that the city of philadelphia get rid of those kind of blood suckers, they are after the low income people of this wonderful city, it s time for people to stand up for their right, and i m talking about everyone including the taxi drivers, those innocent people work really hard to meet ends meat. PPA calls itself a state agency but in fact does not comply with any of the rules nor the constitution, this is America, the land of the free, God bless this country, the truth shall reveal soon and the PPA will soon be history, a bad history.
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