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Virginia antique plate law meeting: Central VA members


rocketraider

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Information meeting on the new antique plate law <span style="font-weight: bold">Tuesday October 9, 7 PM</span> at Timberlake United Methodist Church, 649 Timberlake Rd, Lynchburg VA.

Guests (?) include:

Delegate Danny Marshall, sponsor of this mess

Delegate Kathy Byron

Senator Steve Newman

along with reps from DMV, Virginia State Police, and surrounding counties' Sheriff's Departments

Charlie Droog for info and directions, 434-942-8086.

Since Mr. Marshall doesn't think enough of old car owners in his own House District to set up something like this, I guess I will drive to Lynchburg. Hope some of the rest of you will too.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A responce from Tom Cox!

It is my hope that the meeting in Lynchburg will be more informational than one laced with acrimony and screams for change. As many of you know, I have been working on the benefits we in Virginia enjoy as antique car owners for fifteen years. I can tell you that after two years of negotiations, doing nothing was not an option with regard to the antique tag statute. There were simply too many complaints about abuse by junk cars, trucks, and work vehicles. These complaints were lodged at both the state agency and legislative levels. Something was going to happen sooner or later.

The compromise Bill was not as far reaching as some agencies and legislators wanted nor was it as liberal as hobbyists wanted. However, it did protect our current property tax exempt status, kept us from having to go through annual state inspections, protected our emissions testing exemption, kept our one time fee for registration, and preserved our pleasure use allowance, where we had been limited to shows or parades.

We must realize that while we have achieved a lot of victories, we cannot always have exactly what we want all the time..just most of the time....remember that antiques comprise less than 1% of total registrations in this State, yet we still have many privileges that are not afforded the other 99%. Simply put we cannot afford to continue agitating at this time since the legislators are growing weary of supporting our rantings year after year when we are such a small group. We need to let the dust settle rather than further jeopardize our privileges at this time. Besides, the implementation of the new statute will have been completed by the time the law could be looked at again anyway. l hope we will wait before we jump again, because we may not be so lucky each time we plead our case.

Tom Cox

Legislative Affairs Chairman Eastern Division AACA

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Tom and Wayne- if we are successful in unseating Danny Marshall in November, I will consider the case closed. If he retains his House seat, I believe he'll bring it up again and again until they are back in the personal property tax system. With him being on Counties Cities and Towns, no one will ever convince me that enabling local gov't to tax them at unrealistic rates is not the ultimate goal.

I will be as civil as I can, but I intend to find out why he thought it necessary to change a law that already addressed abuse, instead of forcing DMV and LE to do their jobs under the existing wording.

When Richmond DMV office tells me to complain to local LE to address concerns about abuse of plates THEY issued, and the local LE then tells me it's not a priority for them...

WHOSE LAZY ASS IS NOT DOING THEIR JOB?

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Many thanks to Charlie Droog and Timberlake UMC for the opportunity to discuss it and to the Delegates, DMV and LE folks who came, even though from the questions and discussion it is OBVIOUS that the people who engineered this thing do not have a clue how to put it into practice and are playing it as they go.

I asked Marshall point blank if the ultimate plan was to put antique plates back in personal property tax system and he said Counties Cities and Towns had no input on the new law. We'll see.

A young State Trooper who was being grilled pretty hard on the seizure of plates provision finally answered, "I don't write these laws, I just enforce them". When asked just how he planned to enforce the new law, he pointed to Jim Gurney and Danny Marshall and said "When these guys tell me how to do it".

Nothing more needs to be said.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Sorry to say Mr. Marshall has just won another 2-year term in the Virginia House of Delegates sick.gif. He won by <span style="font-weight: bold">628</span> votes- only a 4% margin. He did NOT carry the City of Danville- his home base.

Don't be surprised if we see this crap again. Even for a career politician, he takes speaking out of both sides of his mouth to a new level.

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Re;Marshall

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I asked Marshall point blank if the ultimate plan was to put antique plates back in personal property tax system and he said Counties Cities and Towns had no input on the new law. </div></div>

Glenn, a lot of Virginia taxpayers are happy that former Governor Gilmore gave all automobile owners in Virginia a little tax relief. After all, that's what won the election for Gilmore. Now, he's looking at running for John Warner's soon to be open Senator spot. I can't imagine Marshall or anyone else going after the antique car hobby just for tax reasons.

The biggest concern we should have as Virginians is making sure that these illegal users of the antique car tag are turned in and taken off the streets. This is what brought all of the attention to our hobby in the first place.

Let's give DMV a chance to do their job. Keeping a low profile right now would be advisable.

Wayne

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<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">When Richmond DMV office tells me to complain to local LE to address concerns about abuse of plates THEY issued, and the local LE then tells me it's not a priority for them...</div></div>

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The biggest concern we should have as Virginians is making sure that these illegal users of the antique car tag are turned in and taken off the streets. This is what brought all of the attention to our hobby in the first place.</div></div>

Then we have to get DMV and LE on board here, and I don't think they're fully on board yet.

I'll take my own lumps any day, but my cars are licensed to the letter of the law, and I am not one to be a whipping boy for someone else's screwups, be they a state agency or someone trying to get over on the system.

A comment at a cruise night earlier this year pointed out that all one had to do was go thru the local Goodyear plant parking lot to see why there was so much fuss being made over the plates all of a sudden. It's full of beaters with antique plates. These guys don't want to subject a nice vehicle to the airborne contaminants out there, so they buy a POS, then figure out they can slap an antique plate on it and get out of a lot of the cost of owning a car in VA. Then again that's the mindset of a lot of people out there- get over on as much as you can. You never see any of those guys at a cruise night or car show.

When DMV gets serious about screening antique plate applications, then I will support them 100%. As it is, I think it's just another revenue scheme since all currently licensed antiques are grandfathered. There is no incentive to get the antique plates off clunkers currently wearing them.

But I've said my piece, so all I have to do now is get enough time off to go down to DMV and handle my four antique plates. I don't trust the mail-in process to get the job done on this without backlash and more hassle.

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