[at-l] NC AT Specialty Tag, Etc.

[icw at esisnet.com (Clark Wright)]

I've been away from AT-L for a good while - digest mode helped me cut 
down on my message-to-message addiction!  :)  Anyhow, I happened to 
download about two weeks of digests and stumble across several that 
subject lines re specialty license tags, so here goes, from as close to 
the horses mouth as I can get:

1)  The bill that I initially drafted and toyeda round with did get 
picked up by Senator Joe Sam Queen, who then became the real force 
behind passage.  House Bill 855, a composite specialty tag bill which 
contains the AT tag stuff, passed in the NC General Assembly as of July 
20, 2003.  From all of my involvement with him on this issue, all I 
gotta say is that Senator Queen is my #1 senator and participant in the 
political process!  I also want to thank Arthur for helping spark the 
idea many, many months back with his AT-L post.  While I had toyed with 
the idea before, his post and my own recent 1,300+ mile hike on the AT 
in 2001, which then provoked me to change course in my law career - all 
conspired to get me off my butt and actually DO something! :)

2)  The next issue of ATN should have a small news item re the bill 
passing - then the issue after that may have a more in-depth article 
featuring Senator Queen.

3)  In response to Arthur's recent pessimistic post, all I can say is 
that the fact that the bill rests on the Governor's desk is no reason 
for alarm - he has a huge stack of bills to wade through since it was 
passed by the General Assembly at the end of the session.  I personally 
am not aware of any way in which Governor Easely could side-track the 
proceeds of this specialty tag without legislative authorization.  Under 
NC law, and under the AT tag bill language as passed by the NC General 
Assembly, the AT specialty tag will carry a price tag of $50.00.  Of 
that amount, $20.00 goes to NCDOT for the regular tag renewal; $10.00 
goes to NCDOT to cover the costs of the specialty tag program, and the 
other $20.00 goes directly to ATC, paid in quarterly installments (based 
on the number of tags sold during the prior quarter), where the funds 
must be segregated and used for AT maintenance, right-of-way 
acquisition, educational efforts, etc. only for those portions of the AT 
that run through (or on the border of) North Carolina.  I will do my 
best to confirm that there is no curveball re these important funds on 
Monday (August 11th) and post something on AT-L.  PLEASE do not further 
any rumors that might hurt tag sales or interest in this tag in NC until 
I get back to ya'll!  :)

4)  Senator Queen was able to keep the NC AT specialty tag bill alive, 
despite lots of budget and political sniping; he also was able to keep 
it as a "pure" specialty tag, which means we get almost total 
flexibility in how to design and color it.  I am currently working with 
Brian King at ATC on issues such as tag design, publicity, etc.  If you 
have a serious interest in tag design suggestions, please feel free to 
e-mail me off-list at:  icw@wardanddavis.com  All thoughts and 
suggestions on how to design the tag, get people to buy it, etc. are 
WELCOMED!!  Note that we plan to have the tag on sale as of 1/1/04.  We 
must get a minimum of 300 tags presold in order for NCDOT to make the 
first batch of plates - from the response I've seen so far, that will 
not be a problem! :)

Thanks!

Thru-Thinker
[Clark Wright]