If you assumed that council chambers would be packed to the gills in those bright red "$15-an-hour" T-shirts and signs, here to make a show at this afternoon's full council meeting, you'd be mistaken. Instead, the biggest contingent in the room (and pretty much all of the signs) belonged to a bevy of for-hire drivers, here to testify to the council asking for the right to pick up passengers who hail them on the street instead of being forced to only take passengers who call and arrange a ride in advance.

They're invoking Council Member Kshama Sawant's cry for a higher minimum wage in their fight, saying this limit on their ability to pick up fares prevents them from making a living wage:

Also brought up: how impossible it is for downtown tourists to tell the difference between taxis and for-hire cars, which are differentiated only by paint jobs—something no out-of-towner could be expected to know.

Goldy's been covering this taxi/for-hire/rideshare drama at city hall all year long; read some of his coverage here, here, and here if you missed it.