Committee Will Consider 2nd Taxi Franchise : City government: A citizens panel review of Babaeian Transportation Co.’s finances is incomplete.

The Los Angeles City Council’s Transportation Committee agreed Friday to consider next week who should be awarded a second taxi franchise in the San Fernando Valley, even though a citizens panel charged with studying the issue has not completed its review.

The mayor-appointed panel, known as the Transportation Commission, delayed a decision last week on whether to award a franchise to Burbank-based Babaeian Transportation Co., saying it needed more time to study the company’s finances.

Commission members and representatives of Valley Cab Co., which has held an exclusive franchise in the Valley since 1984, raised questions about whether Babaeian had the financial strength to provide the services the company promised. The commission had voted unanimously to delay a decision for 30 days to give city Transportation Department staff time to study those concerns.

A spokeswoman for Councilman Nate Holden, chairman of the Transportation Committee, said that Holden decided the process had dragged on too long and that the question of who should get the taxi franchise should come before the committee at its meeting Wednesday.

Phyllis Moats, Holden’s transportation deputy, said Holden’s decision does not necessarily mean that the Babaeian contract will be approved. The committee could decide that more study of Babaeian’s finances is needed. Or, she said, the committee could decide to return the entire matter to the commission.

The Transportation Commission and the Transportation Department concluded last year that there was not enough taxi business in the Valley to support a second franchise, and Valley Cab representatives report that nearly half of their 96 cabs routinely sit idle because of lack of business.

Nonetheless, the City Council, lobbied hard by Babaeian, agreed in June to seek bids for a second cab company.

Transportation matters such as the taxi franchise normally go to the commission before they are considered by the Transportation Committee, which then makes a recommendation to the entire City Council, said Kenneth E. Cude, principal transportation engineer for the Transportation Department.

He said Holden’s decision to take the matter up before the commission review is done “is not normal, but we normally don’t process too many taxi franchises, either.”

The commission has met only once to discuss whether to award the franchise to Babaeian but has met several times since September, 1990, to consider the question of whether a second franchise should be awarded, he said.

George Piedra, director of operations for Valley Cab, said he believes heavy lobbying efforts by Babaeian, which included expensive market research and the busing of senior citizen supporters to a council meeting, persuaded council members to take the matter out of the hands of the commissioners.

“Why do they have the board of commissioners if they don’t even get a chance to review it?” Piedra said.

Babaeian, which operates about 100 cabs in Glendale, Burbank Pasadena, has hired former Councilman Art Snyder’s law firm to lead the lobbying effort. Babaeian representatives could not be reached for comment late Friday.

Commissioner David A. Leveton, who had previously raised several serious questions about Babaeian’s finances, said Friday that he had not been told about Holden’s decision to take up the taxi franchise question. He said the news caught him off guard, but he declined to speculate on why the committee decided to take on the issue.

Marian Broome, president of the commission, said she was not upset that the taxi matter had been advanced to the committee without the commission’s recommendation. But she said she would be concerned if the committee ignored the questions raised about Babaeian’s finances.

She said the commission’s decision to delay a vote on Babaeian was based on serious concerns. “We do not arbitrarily do this,” she said.