The lines were long at the Dallas County Treasurer’s office on the first floor of the courthouse last week as people picked up their vanity license plates and new blackout plates.
For a $60 fee, owners of registered vehicles were able to exchange any plates for non-personalized blackout plates at the county treasurer’s office starting Sept. 3. The switch from personalized plates to personalized blackout plates required a mail-in request, and a three- to six-week processing time.
Now those vanity plates are starting to arrive in county treasurers’ offices, including Dallas County Treasurer Mitch Hambleton’s, and his 18-person staff is hardly settled in six weeks after their move to new quarters in July.
“It is a busy place,” Hambleton said Saturday, after a week of long lines. “The black plates have been a bit of a curse. We sold 800 in the month of September. We had 324 customers just yesterday.”
Hambleton praised his “tremendous staff” for their diligence and efficiency in processing the public’s plates and said the new Qmatic electronic queuing system was facilitating the customer flow. At least one registrant, however, offered a recommendation for improving the process to Hambleton, well known as a connoisseur brewer of craft beer at his home in Dallas Center.
“My wait time was almost an hour,” said Jon McAvoy of Adel. “You should have a tap room of home brew in the waiting area to pick these up. A tap room would have made the wait better. Since I walked down to get them, no OWI for me!”
Annual registration renewal fees for the specialized license plates will run $15, including a $5 validation fee and $10 for the blackout plate fee.
For more information on license plates, visit the Iowa Department of Transportation website.
