THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 17, 1995 TAG: 9502170536
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PATRICIA HUANG, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
It's an annual event: Long lines snaking around city halls as residents wait until the last minute to buy city vehicle stickers.
Chesapeake made history this week for the line that never formed.
City officials were pleasantly surprised to discover on Wednesday, the last day for renewing city decals, that a new process of issuing decals left the traditional long lines behind.
``I've worked here more than 28 years, and there's never been a year when there haven't been lines on the deadline day. I don't think that's ever happened,'' said Dick Pokorny, a Chesapeake systems analyst.
Pokorny is the inventor of a new sticker in use in Chesapeake for the first time this year. It includes the make, model and vehicle identification number of the car. The purpose of the change is to cut down on sticker thefts.
But the new sticker also speeded up the deadline-day scramble: Now the sticker receipt is on the back that peels off; filing of car owners' information is done automatically through the computer; and people waiting on line can find a City Hall employee to make sure they have all the materials needed by the time they reach the counter.
City Treasurer Barbara O. Carraway said it takes less than 20 seconds to issue one of their new decals, compared with several minutes for the old stickers. Considering that 114,000 stickers had been sold in Chesapeake by Wednesday morning, that's a considerable savings of time.
``All the preliminary work gets done before the person gets to the counter,'' Carraway explained.
Residents of other cities should be so lucky. Hampton City Treasurer Robert E. Quinn said his office has been overflowing with more than 2,000 people a day. Police officers have been asked to monitor the crowds that queue up between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. Things have gotten so hectic that the office has been turning people away as early as 8:30 a.m., he said.
``Since 6 a.m. this morning, they were wrapped around the courthouse and all the way down,'' Quinn said Thursday.
In Norfolk, the usual scramble to get decals has people waiting in lines that almost reach out the front door. City Treasurer Joseph T. Fitzpatrick said he expects the hordes of people to continue for at least five more business days.
This year, for the first time, 16 localities in southeastern Virginia had a uniform Feb. 15 deadline for purchasing city decals.
Fitzpatrick and other Hampton Roads officials are considering following Chesapeake's example.
The primary reason, they say, is the increasing number of stolen or lost stickers each year. In most cities, the decals cost about $24. Most thefts are by people who want to avoid paying personal property taxes on their cars to receive the decal.
In the past, the Chesapeake decals came with one number that was tied to a specific car only through city computers.
``Now they can look at it and see that this thing that purports to be a Chevrolet is actually a Ford,'' Pokorny said.
A colleague of his likened the creation of the new stickers to the invention of the paper clip. ``It's a simple little thing,'' Pokorny said. ``Anyone could've thought of it. But there had to be a first person to come up with it.''
The concept of the new yellow-and-white decal is so simple and obvious, Fitzpatrick said, he doesn't know why someone hasn't thought of it sooner.
City officials are delighted with their newfound efficiency.
``But people's habits still haven't changed,'' Pokorny said. ``They've always been procrastinators, and they always will be procrastinators.'' by CNB