HEAVY TRAFFIC CONGESTION RENEWING LICENSE PLATES

By Juan Montoya
For about a  month now, county residents trying to renew their license plates have been forming long lines at the Cameron County Tax Assessor-Appraisers' Office on Harrison Street.
We wondered why, being as how there are two police substations (one in Las Prietas and one on Southmost) where they can get them renewed.
That's not taking into consideration that the majority of the HEB Grocery Stores in town also process the renewal of plates, for a slight fee, of course.
Still, we think people would rather deal with county government directly and that explained the long lines at the beginning and rend of every month when theirs expire.
Well, it seems we were partly right, and partly wrong.
When we worked our way past the people standing in the long line that snaked through the corridor and to the door leading to the outside and inquired at the tax office, we were told that the reason that many people formed lines ta the main office was because for the better part of a month or more, the compugeeks at the county computer department have been trying to tweak the glitches from a new communications system into place that was programmed to interface between the main office and the substations.
Apparently, after  a month, they haven't been successful.
As a result, those people who either don;t know they can do it at HEB (or don;t want to pay the extra fee), have been forming the long lines at the main office.
Recently we tried to get license plates renewed for a friend at the HEB next to the substation on 30th and Southmost Road. Armed with her license, insurance and renewal notice, we were asked if the insurance policy covered us as well.
When we replied that we weren't renewing for ourselves the clerk politely (but firmly) turned us away and told us that "store policy" prohibited them from issuing the renewal unless the purchaser (not the car owner) was included in the insurance policy.
We had already been downtown and had left because of the long wait, to the substation where we were told the system was down and the clerk suggested we go to the store next door. Now, after the better part of two hours and a few gallons of gar trying to get the renewal, we had no other choice but to go to the 4670 Southmost Rd. office of Tony Menchaca's
Cameron CARS, in Brownsville.
There, the clerk didn't have the insurance requirement that HEB had and asked us if we knew that we had to pay and extra $7.50 fee to get the plates renewed.
"What's the difference now?," we asked. "We've probably spent that much time just driving around the city trying to get the plates. We'd probably still be standing in line at the Harrison Street main office."