By ED MERRIMAN

Baker City Herald

All’s well that ends well, at least so it seemed Tuesday evening when the Baker City Council accepted recommendations for resolving unfair practices by the Community Connection bus service alleged two weeks ago by Sally Scelson, owner of the Baker Cab Company.

Scelson initially alerted the City Council at its June 10 meeting to practices by the publicly funded Community Connection bus service that appeared to violate the city ordinance governing taxi cabs and similar businesses.

Scelson contends that Community Connection takes customers from her business, and thus threatens its future, by:

n Accepting riders on call without complying with the four-hour advance reservation requirement in the ordinance;

n Picking people up from stores who hadn’t ridden the bus with advance notice to get there;

n Picking up and delivering medical prescriptions, and picking up riders at locations other than designated bus stops, including some cases where riders had called a cab and then took the bus instead.

During the June 10 meeting, Community Connection manager Mary Jo Carpenter acknowledged that bus drivers had not been careful enough to avoid some of the types of conflicts Scelson cited.

In an effort to keep bus company practices from jeopardizing Baker Cab Co., a situation Mayor Jeff Petry and other councilors have said they want to avoid, Petry appointed Scelson, Carpenter and council members Terry Schumacher and Beverly Calder to a Public Transportation Committee.

That committee met June 17 and reported to the City Council on Tuesday.

The committee proposed a list of actions that Carpenter recommended to resolve the main issues raised by Scelson, as well as some other issues she came up with to help Baker Cab expand its services and ridership.

The City Council accepted Carpenter’s recommendations, including her pledge to stop the bus company’s practice of picking up and delivering prescriptions from a local pharmacy for seniors and handicapped clients, and to do a better job of monitoring to ensure passengers are calling four hours in advance.

Carpenter also offered to help Baker Cab by seeking grants for a new handicapped-accessible vehicle that could be shared or leased to Baker Cab.

In addition, Carpenter offered to help the cab company qualify for payments from the Oregon Health Plan for providing contracted medical rides.

She also offered to notify Baker Cab drivers to participate in defensive driving and passenger assistance training scheduled by the Community Connection, and said there is a possibility that Baker Cab could provide some paratransit service for a fixed trolley route system being planned for Baker City.

andquot;Perhaps we can help with marketing by posting Baker Cab info in our office and on the buses,andquot; Carpenter said.

andquot;We will continue to refer riders to Baker Cab, especially those who don’t call in for their bus ride in a timely manner,andquot; Carpenter said, adding that nine riders were referred to Baker Cab by the bus service in the week after Scelson presented her concerns to the City Council.

As a suggestion that might increase taxi ridership, Carpenter also suggested that Baker Cab adopt and enforce a policy restricting smoking in taxi cabs, by drivers as well as passengers.