License plates change halted

Ed Koch and Jace Radke

Thursday, Nov. 2, 2000 | 10:51 a.m.

A costly plan to issue newly designed license plates to 1.4 million automobiles in Nevada has been put on hold.

The plates were supposed to be issued Jan. 1 by the Department of Motor Vehicles and Public Safety to every vehicle in the state with the same numbers as their old plates, according to a story Wednesday on "NewsONE at Nine" on Las Vegas One, Cox cable channels 1 and 39.

It would have cost about $4 million -- $3 apiece -- to mail the new plates, featuring a colorful mountain sunset, that some lawmakers say are unnecessary.

"The bighorn sheep plates we now have are good enough, and I see no reason to replace them," Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, said. "When the Legislature comes into session, we need to look at this and see if this can be undone."

Prisoners in Carson City have been manufacturing the new license plates -- without numbers -- at a rate of 10,000 a day. Beers said a decision to not send new plates to current owners means those plates can be embossed with sequential numbers, thus saving money.

The plates will be issued starting Jan. 1 only to new registrations and to motorists who request them for currently registered vehicles, DMV spokesman Kevin Malone said, noting that the agency will take special orders for motorists who want to keep their same plate numbers or personalized plates.

For current plate-holders, the sunset plates will cost $1 plus one year's registration, which can be pro-rated for those who want the new plates before their registration is due.

Malone said that while mailing the new plates would have been a chore for DMV employees, it would not have drained the agency's coffers, because the money was to come from the State Highway Fund, not the DMV operating budget.

The DMV receives 22 percent of the State Highway Fund for its operating budget, but the money to mail the new license plates would have been "over and above" what the DMV gets annually, Malone said.

If the Legislature decides to return to the current bighorn sheep design, few of the sunset plates will ever make the roadways.

Assemblyman Don Gustavson, R-Sun Valley, a member of the Transportation Committee, which supported the 1997 measure, said what the DMV has done is not what the committee expected.

"When I voted in favor of it, I did not think they would send them out all at once," he said. "There was not a lot of objection at the time to what was presented, but now it is different."

Supporters say the main reason to switch all of the plates at once is to prevent criminals from using old plates from out-of-use cars to place on stolen vehicles.

"Within four months of the new plates being on the road, they will be stolen off vehicles and illegally used just as the current ones are," Beers said. "I have talked to members of law enforcement about this, and they see no benefit to replacing the plates.

"It is just a waste of money."