Statement by Jennifer Dotson, Founder of Ithaca Carshare and Executive Director of the Center for Community Transportation
It’s now September 1, the date we set to start shutting down Ithaca Carshare. Part of the reason we needed to do this today is to preserve the other work we do at the Center for Community Transportation, which began as Ithaca Carshare and now includes Bike Walk Tompkins and Ithaca Bikeshare.
However, this past week thanks to your continued phone calls and emails, negotiations between the governor’s counsel staff and legislative counsel staff means the bill that will allow Ithaca Carshare to reopen is still in the works and could be signed by Governor Hochul at any moment.
Last week, when the governor was here in our community, assemblywoman Anna Kelles asked her directly about signing bill A.5718/S.5959, and Governor Hochul said, “We’ll get it done.”
What seems clear to us now is this: Political pressure from commercial insurance companies is the only thing standing in the way of Governor Hochul signing the bill today. Counsel staff said this is the most contentious bill of the session, not because of the substance of the bill but because of the pressures we’re up against.
To that, we ask why these same insurance companies are not serving the nonprofit market adequately? They’ve had months and years to help nonprofits (specifically carshares) obtain auto insurance, and yet they’ve all left the carshare market in NYS and frequently decline auto insurance to other nonprofits.
We need to give this one last push. Please keep calling and emailing Governor Hochul to let her know that TODAY is the time to sign the bill! Ask her to land on the side of nonprofits over commercial insurance companies.
For links to all the latest action items: https://linktr.ee/ithacacarshare