This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

In Support of FlightCar

Due to my audit busy season I missed this San Mateo Daily Journal Article that came out last week:

http://www.smdailyjournal.com/articles/lnews/2013-11-07/millbrae-planning-commission-pull-flightcars-use-permit/1776425112949.html

I'm pleading my case with Millbrae that we have to find reasons to keep businesses in the city and work with them to stick around.

I understand violations made have been done by FlightCar but some of the points seemed frivolous such as poor maintenance of shrubs? Really guys? Isn't the Nissan Dealership surrounded by a chain link fence more of an eye sore? I didn't see the smoke detector as a big deal since their office is literally almost like a backyard storage shed.

FlightCar is a boot strapped start-up business dealing in a real tangible and beneficial service to everyone. The kinks can definitely be worked out over time. I did not like the statement in the article that "this did not work" implying there will be no attempt to compromise or rectify the situation - the city is dead set on banning them and getting rid of their business license and did so in the last city council meeting. They moved to revoke their business license.

Quote of the week goes to Millbrae Councilman Wayne Lee. When talking about FlightCar’s code issues before the council voted to shut down the personal car rental service, he said, “It looks like they set up a lemonade stand, thinking they could get away with a permanent lemonade stand.”

http://www.smdailyjournal.com/articles/opinions/2013-11-15/this-column-may-offend/1776425113375.html

I would have given them a little more time honestly... perhaps talked to their venture capital backers?

I'm not alone in this thinking. Thank you E. Picchi in seeing we should encourage young entrepreneurs not run them out of town!

http://www.smdailyjournal.com/articles/opinions/2013-11-12/letter-flightcar-versus-the-city-of-millbrae/1776425113161.html

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?