Yeah, I was driving south on Eugene Street the other day when traffic suddenly came to a halt. The parking lot of the Independence Center was backed out —once again.
I mention this because the Independence Center is Guilford County Manager Brenda Fox’s choice for a proposed county-run DMV license plate office. Sufficient parking, or lack thereof, isn’t the real issue here. Scott Yost’s long Rhino article reports Fox sent a “sparse application” to the state three days past deadline and still beat out 39 private applicants:
One applicant who lost out to Guilford County in his quest to open the office spoke with The Rhinoceros Times but said he did not want his name used. He said he didn’t want to lose a chance to bid on future state contracts, but he said he was informed by state officials he had lost out on the state contract to run the new office.
He said he thought he had a good chance at winning the right to open a license plate agency before the county got into the competition.
He said he and his partners filled out the application “extensively” and went down to Raleigh for the interview. He said that, after the interview, he and his partners felt they had a good shot at getting the state’s approval.
“We had a good interview and everything went well,” he said.
He added that state DMV officials asked all sorts of questions about ethics and financial viability, and that they also asked about available parking – something, he said, that was clearly a key concern for DMV officials.
Commissioner Kirk Perkins likes the idea “questioned the wisdom” of the county getting into the DMV business, but has reservations about the Independence Center location. Chairman Skip Alston, however, likes the prospect, adding he thinks it’s a “great idea.”
Forgetting the logistics for a moment, it’s important to remember this is another instance of Fox operating without commissioners’ knowledge. Commissioner Billy Yow complained a couple of weeks ago about Fox’s lack of communication skills, adding he was tired of getting phone calls from officials in other counties cluing him in on the goings-on in Guilford.
