It seems that Norfolk’s citizens ponied up $10,000 two years ago for a consultant to advise council on cab operations in the city. At the time, the consultant recommended that none of the medallions, or certificates to operate cabs, be given to City Wide Cabs. City Wide Cabs is owned by Lee Perry Rempas, the beleaguered operator of the airport’s limousine service. Council ignored the consultant and voted unanimously to give 10 medallions to City Wide, already the holder of 20. Today we learn that not only is City Wide not using those 10, the company is not using 5 of the ones it already had. So half of the 30 medallions are not being used, and only about 250 such medallions are available city-wide.
No one seems to recall why they paid a consultant and then ignored him.
“He came up with a recommendation that we totally ignored,” Councilman Barclay C. Winn said. “I don’t understand why we hired a consultant and then didn’t listen to him.”
Asked why the council voted that way, Winn and others said it’s difficult to recall after two years.
Let me guess:
At one time Rempas had an ally in City Councilman W. Randy Wright. When Rempas was bidding for the airport limousine service in 2003, Wright wrote a recommendation for Rempas, who was able to wrest that contract away from Groome Transportation of Richmond.
Since council spent our money and then ignored the advice, shouldn’t council pay for it and not us?
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
The real answer is drop the medallion system. Lower the barriers to small business by letting anybody bonded, insured and inspected compete. Not need for big bureaucrats. Cab business is competetive dog-eat-dog anyway with extermely low pay for the workers. Why let some large cab owners have a monopoly by restricting market access? We got too many shady owners and politicos gaming this.
Sounds like a good idea! Now, do you think we can get council to do it?
Good job, Vivian. Shine the light and make it right!
Mr. Rempas has more “friends” than you may realize. Has anyone bothered to ask the Norfolk Airport Authority why it has allowed Mr. Rempas to continue to transport passengers under a contract with the airport authority in vehicles that either do not have insurance or are underinsured? A search of the Norfolk General District Civil Court docket will give two pending lawsuits. DMV is currently responsible for all passenger for hire operations, including taxi operators, but claim they do not have the manpower or legal responsibility to provide any compliance reviews that could be used to protect the consumer.
Bob – any idea who these “friends” are? It does seem that Rempas has been allowed to do things – like being constantly behind in his payments to the airport – that others would not have been allowed to do.
The Virginian-Pilot articles touched on a few of his “friends”. Perhaps you could ask who hand-carried Mr. Rempas’ application for the licensing required at the airport to the DMV-MCS office in Richmond. Word on the street is that application was processed in an unusually quick manner. You also need to ask why Mr. Rempas is still allowed to continue to operate out of that airport with uninsured/underinsured vehicles. I understand he hasn’t made a single commisswion payment since they “asked him to leave”. Mr. Rempas operation has been reported to DMV-Motor Carrier Services many times over the last several years and nothing has happened there either. Here is one for you… ask for proof of insurance on the large bus (displaying VA FOR HIRE tag H509785) that is now parked on airport property. The vehicle did not have a current Fuel Tax sticker and is displaying USDOT/MC numbers that have been revoked since 1996. This bus is required to carry $5M in commercial liability insurance and carry current USDOT operating authority. The smaller shuttle bus (displaying VA FOR HIRE tag LPR07) is also required to have the $5M insurance. I believe it is registered to one of his employees and probably isn’t even listed on his commercial liability policy. Maybe you should ask who owns one of the black limos he operates/uses. I think you’ll recognize that name….
Wow. The newspaper hasn’t really covered this at all, have they? Just a little snippet here and there.
The newspaper is only going to go out on the proverbial limb but so far…. There are a lot of influential people involved. The officers partoling the airport have been instructed to leave this operation alone. DMV is supposedly “investigating”, but those responsible at the main DMV office in Richmond have shown me very little in the way of competence and quite a bit regarding preferential treatment. Rempas has a history of “lending” his licensing credentials to operations that can not pass muster for obtaining licensing on their own. Just because a vehicle is displaying an “LPR” tag does not mean it is owned or operated by him or it has the required insurance. This thing is a lot bigger than anyone realizes. Someone is going to have to be seriously injured or killed before those responsible take any action.