Company’S Tab-Renewal Service Contested Drop Boxes At Emission Test Sites Create An Unfair Advantage, Competitor Says

Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton calls it innovative customer service.

Spokane businessman Al Paulsen calls it an illegal monopoly.

The state isn’t sure what to call it.

But they’re all talking about what to do about a local company’s practice of accepting car license tab renewals at Spokane vehicle emission test sites.

“It’s just one of those lovely, bureaucratic messes,” Dalton said Wednesday.

Pete Fox of 32-26 Auto Licensing Service began providing the service about two months ago.

At first, Fox had his employees at the emission test sites accept renewals.

Now, he has drop boxes at the sites so drivers can turn in their car emission evaluations and checks for their license tab renewals. His employees then pick up the paperwork and take it to the 32-26 Auto Licensing office on East Trent to process it and mail their customers their tabs.

Fox pays the company that runs the test stations for the privilege of putting the drop boxes at the sites, Dalton said.

The service saves consumers the trouble of mailing their emission information from home or traveling to the county courthouse or one of the other eight firms in Spokane authorized by the state to process tab renewals, Dalton said.

“He came to me with this a few months ago, and I said, `Wow, what a great idea for customer service,”’ Dalton said.

Fox’s company makes $3 for each renewal processed.

Dalton, whose office also processes tab renewals and oversees the private firms in Spokane that do renewals, said she called officials with the state Department of Licensing to see if such an arrangement was appropriate.

“When we first brought it up to their staff, they just shrugged their shoulders,” Dalton said.

So she gave Fox the go-ahead.

Word soon got out among Fox’s competitors, though, and complaints began to arrive at the Department of Licens- ing office in Olympia.

Fox was unavailable for comment Wednesday, an employee at his company said. He apparently is on vacation.

“The complaints range from Mr.

Fox operating his business outside his authorized location to the selection of Mr. Fox to perform these services which were not offered to other subagencies to make the service more equitable,” the department’s assistant director, Nancy Kelly, wrote to Dalton last week.

Kelly also expressed concerns about the security of the money left in the drop boxes. State attorneys will be researching the matter, she wrote to Dalton.

Paulsen, one of Fox’s competitors, complained Wednesday that Fox has been given an unfair advantage.

Paulsen said no one should be allowed to do what Fox is doing, or that everyone should have an equal chance to get in on the action.

“To me, it’s not ethically, morally or legally correct,” he said. “It’s just not right. It’s an illegal preference.”

Paulsen was particularly critical of Dalton’s role in the affair.

“I thought she was elected to represent all of us,” he said. “It’s not like the rest of us haven’t thought of doing this before.”

Dalton countered that Fox’s entreaty was the first time any of the private tab renewal agencies had approached her with the idea. She was elected in 1998.

“He came up with what I thought was a great idea,” Dalton said. “Now his peers and the state agency who controls it are trying to shut it down. Who suffers? The consumer and the person who came up with the idea.”

Dalton said she is scheduled to meet with local licensing companies in a couple of weeks to try to reach a compromise.

“This is an experiment,” she said. “We’ll see what happens.”