Nevada license plate program slowed

CARSON CITY - Logistical problems at the Department of Motor Vehicles and Public Safety will slow distribution of Nevada's new license plates next year.

The law authorizing the new license plates had required the department to mail out the new plates with 2001 registration renewals. But that won't happen.

''What we have done is scale back the program and asked the Legislature to take another look at it,'' said DMV spokesman Kevin Malone. ''We want the Legislature to stretch it out over two or three years.''

The department will issue the new sunset plates - so called because they feature an orange and yellow sunset behind snow-capped mountains - only to individuals who purchase new vehicles or request them at department offices this year.

''The distribution is the problem,'' Malone explained. ''It's not necessarily the manpower. It's just the cumbersome process of mailing them out.''

Sen. William O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas, chairman of the state Senate Transportation Committee, doesn't see any problems with extending the time to distribute the new plates.

But some would like to see the plate replacement program scrapped all together.

Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, believes the program is a waste of money. He claims that by stopping the program now the state could save more than half of the $3.9 million budgeted for plate replacement.