Year-Round City Sticker Sales Coming To Clerk's Office
CHICAGO (CBS) -- This is the last June that Chicago motorists will have to wait in long lines outside the City Clerk's office to get their vehicle stickers.
WBBM Newsradio Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports the switch to year-round vehicle sticker sales begins after this, but the program is already having big benefits.
Clerk Susana Mendoza said, after vehicle owners renew their city stickers this June, her office will switch to a year-round renewal system, with nearly 1.5 million sticker sales spread out over 12 months, rather than all in June.
"This should be the very last year that you see long lines at City Hall," she said.
Current city stickers expire June 30, but new stickers will have renewal dates six months away from the expiration date of the same vehicle's license plate sticker. Renewals also will be much easier.
"Go online. You can do it in your pajamas. We don't charge any additional fees for using our online service. It's the easiest way to go about doing it," she said. "But, if you love coming to City Hall or to our satellite offices, and know somebody that works there and want to say hello, you can do it, and not expect to have to spend two hours in line."
Mendoza said coordinating her office's records with the Illinois Secretary of State's office had an added benefit – more revenue.
"That new data brought in 30,000 vehicles that had never been in our system, but did exist in the Secretary of State's system," she said. "So when we cross-referenced, and said 'Hey, these cars are registered here. These people live in Chicago. They've never had a city sticker,' we tapped them, and we had 30,000 people come into compliance."
That generated $2.7 million in new revenue for the city.
Mendoza is the guest on this week's edition of "At Issue," and she discusses several topics in her interview, airing Sunday at 9:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m.