{"id":2942,"date":"2017-08-01T06:38:36","date_gmt":"2017-08-01T10:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=2942"},"modified":"2017-08-01T07:07:58","modified_gmt":"2017-08-01T11:07:58","slug":"a-deal-is-a-deal-unless-its-with-the-west-virginia-dmv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=2942","title":{"rendered":"A Deal is a Deal Unless It\u2019s with the West Virginia DMV"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pat Reed is the Commissioner of the West Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Pat

Pat Reed
Commissioner
West Virginia DMV<\/p><\/div>\n

Jennifer Carpenter-Peak is a resident of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Carpenter-Peak received a notice in the mail saying her vehicle registration was up for renewal and it would cost her $30.<\/span><\/p>\n

She checked the $30 box and sent in her <\/span>check.<\/span><\/p>\n

A few weeks later, Carpenter-Peak gets her check sent back to her with a letter from the DMV. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDear DMV Customer,\u201d the letter reads. \u201cYour one year renewal application is being returned to you for the additional $21.50 fee.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Turns out that at the end of June, the state legislature hiked the DMV registration from $30 a year to $51.50 a year. Governor Jim Justice signed the hike into law on June 22 — effective July 1.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"jen1\"<\/p>\n

But Pat Reed, the Commissioner of the DMV, had already sent out about 200,000 notices to DMV customers telling them that the fee was $30.<\/span><\/p>\n

And about 180,000 of those customers — including Carpenter-Peak — marked the $30 box and sent in their checks.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"jen2\"<\/p>\n

Reed says that the DMV returned those 180,000 $30 checks with a note asking for $21.50 more.<\/span><\/p>\n

She said she had no choice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Did the legislature tell Reed that she should return all of those checks?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t tell me how to operate my business,\u201d Reed said. \u201cThey just tell me what I have to do. And the legislature said — effective July 1, you will collect 51.50.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am not in front of the legislature,\u201d Reed said. \u201cThey send me the law. And I follow it. I am the administrator of the law. I did not make the law or question them on what they did.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But since these 180,000 West Virginians were billed $30, for them, couldn\u2019t you just leave it at that?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Reed said. <\/span><\/p>\n

Reed said that she consulted with attorneys and they advised there was no way around it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had lawyers look at it,\u201d Reed said. \u201cI had no choice. I am the administrator of the state law. The state law says July 1 you will pay $51.50. We did everything possible. We were on 27 different medias that week with a press release and everything to tell people — this is happening. You are going to owe $51.50 starting July 1. If you do it by Friday night (June 30), you can still pay $30.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Carpenter-Peak said she was \u201cbewildered, then irritated, then extremely dismayed at the waste and inefficiency that this has caused the citizens of our state.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRaising the fee is not unreasonable,\u201d Carpenter-Peak wrote in a letter to Reed. \u201cThe audacity of spending taxpayer money to actually send back the paperwork upon which the DMV has the fee amount clearly printed and then re-processing the registration is staggering. \u201c<\/span><\/p>\n

Carpenter-Peak said that the letter she got from the DMV had Governor Jim Justice’s name on it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Governor\u2019s press office did not return calls seeking comment. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe letter was not signed, and the contact phone number leads only to recorded information,\u201d Peak wrote. \u201cI am appalled that there is not a clearly stated author taking responsibility for this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pat Reed is the Commissioner of the West Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). Jennifer Carpenter-Peak is a resident of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. Carpenter-Peak received a notice in the mail saying her vehicle registration was up for renewal and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2942"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2944,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2942\/revisions\/2944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}