REMARKS
Council Member Feliz's Statement: Advocating for Safe E-Bikes Legislation
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137 sec
Council Member Feliz emphasizes the need for delivery app companies to provide certified e-bikes to workers without them.
Highlighting a crisis caused by uncertified e-bikes, including fires and fatalities, he outlines his bill aimed at enhancing fire safety. Feliz commends city efforts, such as the battery trade-in program, and urges third-party apps to increase their contributions to resolve the crisis.
Speaker 15
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Thank you.
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Good afternoon, everyone.
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Good to see you all.
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I want to thank you chair for this hearing, and congratulations I think you're gonna do a good job leading this committee.
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And I also wanna thank 2 very important groups Tar City, our delivery workers and our street vendors who are joining us today.
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But not the rest in values.
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Now my bill.
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My bill will require that delivery app companies provide a safe and UL certified ebike to delivery workers who don't have one.
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Let me start by saying that we are in a crisis.
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Last year, we had at least 250 fires caused by ebikes.
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By uncertified ebikes.
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Since 2001, we've had at least 27 members of our community that have lost their lives due to these ebikes fires.
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We are in a crisis, and this needs to be it.
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We cannot continue to allow these numbers and these fires to escalate.
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The numbers to escalate or one of these fires to escalate to the fire that we saw in Twin Parks we cannot allow that this really needs to be in.
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So I'm proud of all my colleagues that are supporting the bill and thankful for the administration.
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For supporting this bill, making sure that everyone is helping resolve the fire safety crisis that we are in.
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We've done a lot.
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We, the city, have done a lot to help resolve it.
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We created battery smart program to make sure that workers can trade in their unsafe battery for a safe one.
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And all the small businesses are also doing their part by ensuring that by only selling UL certified batteries as required by law.
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But, of course, we want the the the 3rd party apps to do a little bit more.
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And I'm very proud of all the work that we've done on this bill to make it possible and hopefully make it a reality and serving A few questions now.
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And thank you, chair for the questions that you asked earlier and also to my colleague, Shauna Breo.
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About the administration's position and also implementation on the bill.