Aztec calendar featured on new license plate

Monday, Nov. 22, 2004 | 10:57 a.m.

Today is Atl.

That's according to the Aztec calendar, which will soon be displayed in all nine of its colors on bumpers around the valley.

The 500-year-old, circular figure is featured in Nevada's latest "specialty license plate," to be unveiled today by its sponsor, the Citizenship Project.

This plate, like many of the 24 others with special designs and messages approved for sale by the state's Department of Motor Vehicles, is being sold to raise money for a cause.

The cause: helping an estimated 100,000 immigrants in Southern Nevada become citizens of the United States.

The Rev. Phil Carolin, executive director of the Citizenship Project -- a Las Vegas nonprofit organization -- said he hopes the plates will be popular in the valley's Hispanic community of nearly 400,000, about 70 percent of whom are of Mexican descent.

Carolin's organization is about three years old and offers free help filling out forms and studying to become a citizen, as well as English and citizenship classes.

To date, it has helped more than 1,000 people from more than 84 nations become citizens. Mexicans account for about half that number.

The Aztec calendar plate is based on a stone carving made in 1479 and found in Mexico City in 1760.

Each plate will cost $61, $25 of which will go to the organization.

This is a similar arrangement to the one for the other specialty license plates, which raise money for groups ranging from the Las Vegas Centennial Celebration Committee -- the top-selling license plate to date -- to the Reno Rodeo Foundation, the plates that show a cowboy on horseback.

Groups sponsoring specialty license plates must obtain 1,000 signatures of Nevada residents pledging to buy the plates, and the sponsors of the plates have to obtain the support of either the Legislature or a commission that evaluates specialty plate proposals.

Only 25 plates can be in circulation at any one time. A particular design can be removed from circulation if sales drop below certain numbers, according to the DMV Web site. There are currently 25 specialty license plates approved for sale.

The plates are produced at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City.

The Aztec calendar plate sprung from a bill passed in the 2002 Legislature. It couldn't be produced until recently, however, after an already-scheduled change from press to digital technology was completed, according to Tom Jacobs, DMV spokesman.

The press couldn't handle the plate's nine colors.

Carolin says money raised from sales of the Aztec calendar plate could help him hire a part-time immigration attorney, something lacking in the organization, which has four paid employees. Additional teachers could also be hired, he said.

The organization also has plans to open an office in the northern part of the state, he said.

The project is currently funded by private donations, Carolin said.

He thinks the Citizenship Project could help as many as 10,000 people become citizens during the next two years if the goal of selling 12,000 plates in that same period is reached. Those sales would raise $300,000 for the organization.

Those figures would make the Aztec plate one of the top sellers statewide. By comparison, more than 26,700 Las Vegas centennial plates had been purchased through June 15, Jacobs said.

Carolin, who is an Episcopal priest, says the controversy surrounding illegal immigration sometimes befalls his organization, even though by definition the people his organization helps are already legal residents, the step below citizenship.

In fact, he said, the organization recently decided to change its name, formerly known as the Immigrant Workers Citizenship Project, because people thought it was helping lawbreakers.

"Helping undocumented workers is simply not the job we're doing here," he said.

As for the job the sales of the license plates will support, Carolin said, "In a land of immigrants, to offer citizenship shouldn't be controversial."