Posted: Saturday, October 3, 2015 5:00 am
By Ray Lamont Staff Writer
Those proposed Cape Ann license plates the local Chamber of Commerce has been championing may be seen on the road next summer.
The chamber has now exceeded the minimum threshold of pledged applicants needed for the state Registry of Motor Vehicles to commission production of the plates once the chamber submits the checks to cover the order. That’s music to the ears of chamber CEO Ken Riehl, whose organization has been promoting the license plate campaign for more than a year.
“It’s great news; we’re excited,” Riehl said Friday. While the number of people who’ve signed up to get the plates still hovers around 900, Riehl said, the registry’s pre-sale minimum for commissioning specialty plates has been lowered by legislation from its previous 1,500 to 750 — opening the door for the chamber’s project to go forward.
“The Cape Ann license plate is not only a tremendous way to strengthen and promote our regional identity, but it will also generate funds that will be involved in our future.
“Like many such plates, (the Cape Ann plate) faced a major obstacle in getting enough pre-subscriptions for approval,” said Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, the Gloucester Republican who, along with House Reps. Ann-Margaret Ferrante, D-Gloucester, and Brad Hill, R-Ipswich, pushed for the legislative change. Hill’s district includes the town of Manchester.
Riehl cautioned that residents who’ve signed up — and those who haven’t — shouldn’t expect to see the plates soon. In its most recent push to generate more applications, the chamber has not required those expressing interest to submit either their license plate numbers or their checks for the $40 cost. The cost of the specialty plates is on top of the registry’s $50 charge for registrations and renewals.
“Our focus now will be to get back to the people who have signed up and to ask them to submit their checks and information,” Riehl said. “Then, we will submit all of the checks as a single batch to the Registry and go from there.”
The legislation lowering the pre-sale mandate does not take effect until Jan. 1, and the Registry has told the chamber it expects it will be three to six months from that date to the time any plates would be sent out to the applying agencies and showing up on the road.
“Realistically, we’re hoping to get them on the road by mid-year,” Riehl said, “and that’s fine. Realistically, it’s probably going to take us until the end of this year to collect all the checks and get them all together to submit.”
Read full article on gloucestertimes.com
