Mayor de Blasio Declines Invitation to Debate with Uber

Uber's latest move in its battle with New York City regulators was to invite Mayor Bill de Blasio to a public debate, but the politician said on Monday that won't be happening any time soon.

The ride-hailing service has been fighting tooth and nail with the city over regulations meant to cap its growth and decrease traffic congestion. The bill would limit Uber's growth to a rate of 1 percent per year while allowing other operators to grow at a rate of up to 15 percent. Uber representatives have said this would cause 10,000 jobs to be lost and hurt customers, and staged a series of protests opposing it.

Earlier this month they added a tab on the app with no cars around to show "what Uber will look like in NYC if Mayor de Blasio's Uber cap bill passes" and held a demonstration in support of Uber in front of City Hall in June. De Blasio responded to the backlash in an op-ed for the New York Daily News this week defending the proposed regulation.

"When you consider what's at stake — from ensuring workers can make a decent living, to managing the surge of more than 2,000 new cars on our streets every month, to protecting consumers from overcharges, to making sure we have more accessible vehicles for New Yorkers with disabilities — it's our responsibility to act," he wrote.

The GM of Uber New York quickly responded with an open letter of his own, and invited de Blasio to a public debate, writing, "If you have new concerns, we want to discuss them, face-to-face, and invite you to do so in a live-streamed conversation so all New Yorkers can watch."

In a press conference this morning, de Blasio officially declined the invite, saying he does not debate with private corporations.

"Let's be clear – Uber is a multibillion-dollar corporation, and they're acting like one," he said, according to Buzzfeed. "They're looking out for their corporate bottom line. They're putting their profits over all other considerations. What we're talking about here is a temporary reduction in their growth."

De Blasio characterized Uber's response to the bill as a typical private company trying to avoid regulation, saying "there's a lot of people in the private sector who'd like to have no government regulation whatsoever, but that's always proven to be a huge mistake." The back-and-forth continues, as Uber said they stand by their invite.

"If the Mayor believes his arguments, there shouldn't be anything wrong with discussing them in front of New Yorkers," an Uber spokesperson said by email. "It's a standing offer and we hope he changes his mind."