Renewal relief coming to the Met
By WILLIAM C. SINGLETON III
Hoover city officials want to operate a county annex at the Hoover Metropolitan Stadium that will allow residents to renew their car tags within city limits.
After the council earlier this month passed a resolution essentially allowing the city to enter the car tag renewal business, Hoover officials said their desire is to ultimately operate a courthouse annex to serve new tags for cars, motorcycles and boats and issue driver’s licenses to Hoover residents.
“It will be a full-service annex,” Council President Pro Term Brian Skelton said. “We certainly have the space there.”
Skelton said the annex would be at the Met, but officials have to discuss what a potential annex would look like and whether modifications would be necessary to accommodate such a facility. Mayor Gary Ivey said he has already begun pursuing the idea.
“We’ve met with Sen. (Jabo) Waggoner and State Rep. (Paul) DeMarco and asked that they look at us for a pilot program for a full-blown annex,” the mayor said.
Earlier this year, the two legislators were instrumental in sponsoring and pushing through a bill that gives Jefferson County cities the right to issue car tag renewals. Vestavia and Hoover are the only Jefferson County cities to act on the new law. The new legislation provides relief to Hoover and Vestavia Hills residents who would otherwise have to travel to the Jefferson County Courthouse in Birmingham, the county courthouse in Bessemer or the courthouse annex in Center Point and stand in long lines to renew their car tags.
DeMarco, a candidate for the state’s Sixth Congressional District seat to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus, said he supports Hoover’s effort to expand services beyond car tag renewals.
“I wholeheartedly support giving cities the authority to move forward with offering more services to citizens,” he said. “I will work with Mayor Ivey and the city of Hoover to go the next step. We’ve talked about it. We’ve talked about sitting down with the Alabama Department of Revenue about the next step in allowing new tags as well as other services. We should be looking for opportunities to make services as convenient as possible for citizens.”
In the meantime, Hoover residents whose tag renewal date is June are in luck. Ivey said the city has targeted June 1 as the day to begin renewing car tags. But with the SEC Baseball Tournament scheduled May 20-25, the start date may be pushed back further into June, the mayor added.
Ingenuity Inc. of Pelham will handle car tag renewals for Hoover. According to the proposed agreement, Ingenuity will receive 90 percent of commission and fees associated with the renewal process, and the city will receive 10 percent. Hoover residents must pay an additional $5 to renew their tag locally. The service will only be for Hoover residents living in Jefferson County. Hoover residents in Shelby County will continue to renew their tags at their county location, but Shelby County doesn’t have the problem of long lines compared with Jefferson County, Ivey said.
Ever since city officials announced Hoover would renew car tags, residents have been bombarding them with emails and phone calls in support of their proposal, Skelton said.
“This will be an outstanding service for our citizens,” he said. “I have not heard one negative comment about it.”