Vestavia Hills celebrates more than 10,000 tag renewals

Vestavia Hills serves as a model for cities across Alabama.

On Thursday, Aug. 13, the mayors of Vestavia Hills, Clay and Irondale gathered at Vestavia Hills City Hall to discuss the success of the tag renewal process in each of their respective cities. Senator Jabo Waggoner and Paul DeMarco, who sponsored the legislation to enable the service, were also present for the event.

Governor Bentley signed a law in February 2014 allowing any city in Jefferson County to take part in motor vehicle registration, including the issuance of license plates.

“Jefferson County has 600,000 people renewing each year and only three locations,” DeMarco said. “Add seven or eight cities, and all of a sudden that becomes 10 locations.”

On April 1, 2014, Vestavia Hills became the pilot city for this program, and the cities of Irondale and Clay followed suit. Since the program began, the Vestavia Hills has completed more than 10,800 of these transactions at City Hall, averaging about 35 a day.

“The money we are receiving is not a revenue generator. It is paid for the service,” Vestavia Hills Mayor Butch Zaragoza said. “The whole point of this process to provide a service to our citizens, not to make money.”

The mayors of Irondale and Clay said they were also pleased with the success of the program and the average wait times for tag renewals was three minutes.

“This has been a tremendous success,” said DeMarco. “I think you’ll start to see other cities doing this as well.”

Jefferson County is currently the only county in Alabama with the legislative authority to issue tag renewals.

“This couldn’t be done without legislative authority,” DeMarco said. “There is the possibility of doing boat tags in the future if the cities see that as a benefit to their citizens.”

DeMarco also stated there is the possibility of the cities having drivers’ licenses kiosks.

“As technology progresses, this is something you may eventually see,” DeMarco said.

Zaragoza commended Ingenuity, a Shelby County company that is providing technical services for the program. He said the city has trained several additional people to be able to handle the transactions if the need grows.

“When you look at 10,800 citizens being able to come here, you’ve got some happy faces coming in and out of City Hall,” Zaragoza said. “Any convenience for our citizens we want to do it."