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After a month of investigation, the Daily News revealed a major problem with the DMV’s issuing of Official license plates. What are Official license plates you may wonder? They are the license plates issued to local governments, such as towns, cities and counties, as well as other quasi-governmental entities like the Port Authority and MTA for their vehicle fleets, with the exception of most marked local police cars and fire trucks, since they do not have state issued license plates. The plates are issued permanently, with out any registration fees and do not have to go through the yearly renewal process. Plus they practically guarantee no tickets for the vehicle and most importantly they are important identifiers in times of crisis.
The newspaper found that individuals, businesses, organizations, volunteer ambulance corps, New York City ASPCA, and Columbia University received the plates from the DMV. Apparently having an official sounding name like Metro New York Search and Rescue or New York Rescue Squad was enough to score the plates.
Columbia University may also have fallen through the official sounding name cracks, since its legal name is Columbia University in the City of New York. An anonymous Columbia official told the Daily News "I don't know why we got these plates." We can only imagine some DMV clerk thinking that some branch of CUNY was getting the plates.
The paper’s investigation prompted the DMV to issue this e-mail to all of its agents on May 18:
It has come to our attention that there are private corporations that, because of their business name, are requesting and being issued official plates.
Effective immediately, no MVR [clerk] is to issue official plates unless the transaction is reviewed and signed as approved by a supervisor.
Please advise your staff to be careful when reviewing applications for official plates. These corporations may have been issued official plates by other offices in error and are using the registrations as proof they are part of the state, city, county, village, town, school district, fire district, or county extension service.
In the case of the ASPCA, DMV officials concluded that they were eligible for the plates due to their status as a law enforcement agency, However, in upstate Sullivan County, the Sullivan County SPCA had their plates confiscated because the sheriff’s department said it “was not a government entity”. Apparently there is no statewide consensus.
DMV spokeswoman Gail Tyner-Taylor told the paper there will be a review of who has been issued the plates and spoke about the problem of who is eligible, "We're also looking into the need to clarify a political subdivision in the law and will be exploring other ways to verify eligibility for official plates. This may lead to the development of new guidelines and procedures."
Perhaps the solution is to not have a catch all official plate for local governments. Other states, such as New Jersey, have plates for different levels of government – state, county, and municipal, while New York just has state government and the ill defined official license plates.
This leads us to even greater security concern that the Daily News did not bring up - marked Port Authority Police vehicles having standard New Jersey passenger license plates instead of some sort of official type. New York plated Port Authority vehicles receive the Official plates and in the past their vehicles received New Jersey municipal government tags, since there is no direct equivalent to New York’s official plate. Given the high sensitivity of the agency’s sites, we would expect something a bit more secure than a plate issued to anyone in New Jersey with a passenger vehicle.
Plus there is the security problem of almost all of the marked NYPD vehicles having license plates made from stick on numbers. In the past, the plates were stamped painted metal, something very hard to fake or alter compared to stick on letters or the flat printed license plates found on State Police cars.
Photograph of Official license plate on Columbia University Public Safety patrol car by Triborough on flickr
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Leave it to the Jews to get more preferential treatment.
How can anyone mistake Columbia for CUNY?
i think it makes sense for volunteer ambulances to get the plates considering that those in the ambulance are, in theory, state-licensed emts or paramedics, but columbia getting them? just another example of how much influence columbia has in this city
kane, what do you mean by that?
it's a racket. they already have an ambulance.
and, they are not a govt official.
Non-government owned ambulances, such as those owned by hospitals or volunteer EMS providers can get ambulance plates from the DMV, while government owned EMS providers, can put official plates on their ambulances.
Well this just furthers my assumptions concerning Corruption & Politics . I don't see the point in complaining about it . If Ur not prepared to do something about it, Then you don't have a right to voice an opinion concerning it ! >Posted By; "Still Not Amused"
That very vehicle has driven me from 110th street to my dorm on 115th street several times, all so that I didn't have to walk the 5 blocks with my groceries.
Are these "ambulance" plates on ambulances or on personal owned vehicles? or, they have this plate on
their Crown Vic PI, like all cop wannabes.
like I said, they already got an ambulance plate on their ambulance.
well somebody complained and it's working.
Gotta love the "Search and Rescue" teams headed by Chaims and Shlomos, with almost a dozen official vehicles but one rescue in their shaky memory.
These must be the same beards in otherwise civilian-looking SUVs and minivans that love to blow red lights and howl sirens. God forbid you get into a fender-bender with a heeb in brooklyn, because the "Search and Rescue" teams will be first on the scene, elbowing the real cops out of the way and making sure only the Chosen get justice.
Jews -- you can't live with 'em . . .
We are from the volunteer EMS service mentioned in the Daily News article (and the above atricle).
We currently operate 2 ambulances (with have "ambulance" plates), and the "official" plate was for a marked agency owned response/command vehicle.
No private vehicles owned by members of this volunteer EMS agency have ambulance or official plates..
This is our official response to the Daily News and is also published on our website
6/12/07 - Lindenwood Volunteer Ambulance Corps (VAC) is a non-profit all volunteer EMS provider serving the communities of Ozone Park, South Ozone Park and Lindenwood for over thirty years. Lindenwood VAC was unaware of any improprieties in its recent registration of its marked response vehicle, until the Daily News article published on June 12, 2007.
Lindenwood VAC only recently added its first non-ambulance vehicle to its fleet of two ambulances and was unaware this marked and NYS Dept of Health certified vehicle was possibly plated incorrectly, as numerous volunteer EMS and Fire Departments within the City and neighboring counties were afforded “official” plates routinely. Lindenwood VAC never falsely represented itself as being other than a non-profit volunteer EMS provider to any city or state entity, including DMV officials during the registration process of the vehicle in question. Lindenwood VAC will fully cooperate with state officials for a swift resolution of this matter.
To ease registration confusion in the future, Lindenwood VAC feels that there should be some type of special plate for emergency vehicles that do not fall into current plating system. Similar to the “ambulance” plates issued, DMV should explore another registration type such as “public safety” or “emergency vehicle” or a general “exempt” registration type, for organizations that provide emergency services but whose vehicles are not government owned.
in response to number 4 - i meant that columbia's security cars don't need these official plates because they are private entities of a private, not-for-profit university and thus should technically have no ties to the city. my assumption is that those who have official plates knows someone in the dmv or is connected somehow because they got the plates in the first place. i was just pointing out that this is an example of columbia's connections to city government and the university getting its way.
official plates, police permits & ID's dont you know they can get anything they want. didnt you see the story a couple of months ago about the jewish diamond dealer running around the city in his official-unofficial car with police permits, light and siren. get real, they can do whatever they want. they own the nypd. i have been following this story on the internet and have seen stories claiming that the people involved in this scandal, the leaders of metro ny search and rescue and new york rescue response team has been selling the officil plates and get this it claims one of them is a member of the well known nypd-vigilante patrol shomrim in brooklyn and a liaison to the nyc fire marshalls. i think it is safe to say, these guys cant be touched.
Let's get this straight. These "agencies" applied for official plates and got them. There is no mention of special treatment of any kind. Yet all we hear about is jews this, jews that, etc. Columbian university and Linwood Volunteer are not jewish affiliated and they got plates. Some jewish wannabes found a loophole, and took advantage of it!! Good for them. If the DMV is so stupid, then everyone should get official plates. Lets put the blame where the blame belongs.
First of all these like you said in your comment "Jewish Wannabes" these guy are not part of an agency, they are part of a scam to obtain official license plate and then abuse them while making the general public believe they have some authority. Finding a loophole is one thing, but subterfuge is another. These guys went out and created corporations with official sounding names like New York Rescue Response Team, Metro New York Search & Rescue with the intention of scamming official license plates from the NYS DMV by mean of deception. They put official plate on privately own vehicles, sell them to others and then drive around the city like they own it.
Columbian university and Linwood Volunteer ambulance service although not officially part of the New York City are not bogus organizations looking to deceive the general public. Unlike these fools who run around the city parking for free, using the unofficial-authority granted by the official plates they scammed from DMV to run red lights while playing cop, fireman or mayor whichever turns them on. And at the end of the day when they are done impersonating public officials, they use lights and sirens to make it home before shabbos starts. That’s a real emergency.
Someone in City, State or the Federal Government needs to finally put a stop to the madness. “Jews” why are they always involved in crap like this, maybe it’s because the NYPD and New York City Mayor’s Office condones it. Like it says it an earlier comment, they have their own police force, the NYPD-Vigilante Patrol Shomrim. Want to blame someone, blame the Police Commissioner and the Mayor!