Question: I thought the DMV was supposed to catch objectionable license plates. How did anything with FCK pass through, much less one against BLM? I find this highly offensive and objectionable!
Answer: The personalized license plate that you and others reported seeing on Oahu — a vulgarity apparently aimed at the Black Lives Matter movement — should not have been approved and has been recalled as of Aug. 7, said Harold Nedd, a spokesman for Honolulu County’s Department of Customer Services. Numerous people reported the plate to Kokua Line, the city or both.
We also received complaints about a personalized license plate with a derogatory slang term for women and one with an apparent Cantonese slur against Caucasians or Westerners. Both also have been rescinded, Nedd said Monday.
Besides expressing outrage, especially about the anti-BLM plate, readers asked about the vetting process. Nedd explained how it’s supposed to work:
Q: Are requests automatically approved, or is someone supposed to be checking?
A: “Requests for personalized plates are not automatically approved. A team in the city’s Motor Vehicle Registration Branch reviews requests for personalized plates. All requests for personalized license plates go through a three-step process before being issued in the City and County of Honolulu.”
Q: Should personalized license plate requests with the letters FCK (followed by other letters) automatically be rejected?
A: Yes. “Requests with the initial letters ‘FCK’ and ‘FKN’ are automatically rejected. If missed by our review protocols and brought to our attention by the public, we will notify the owner, put a stopper on his or her motor vehicle registration, and prevent that vehicle from being registered until the license plate has been surrendered.”
Q: Please describe the vetting/filtering process for personalized license plate requests.
A: “Our challenge is finding the appropriate balance between protecting a customer’s right to free speech and ensuring good taste or decency in the combination of letters and numbers on personalized license plates. We rely on a motor vehicle registration resource site used in other states to detect vulgar plates as well as any language on these plates that might prove problematic. As part of our filtering process, we require 60 to 90 days to allow us to properly vet personalized plates issued in the City and County of Honolulu. An application for a personalized plate is denied if the combination of letters or numbers is deemed misleading in any way, conflicts with the regular license number series, or is offensive to good taste and decency. When publicly objectionable language on a personalized plate escapes our vigilance, we notify the registered owner and recall the license plate we issued once we confirm our oversight. If a publicly objectionable license plate is brought to our attention, we will promptly recall it if we can verify that it’s offensive to good taste and decency.”
Auwe
The federal government extends protections for tenants, but landlords are hung out to dry! They say to apply for relief, but Oahu’s portal is not open! With interest rates so low and prices through the roof, the sane decision is for me to sell the rental that I’ve received no rent on for the past six months. That would take rental housing off the market — the unintended but predictable consequence of poor government policy. Landlords are not the bad guys! — Fed up
(Kokua Line has heard many similar complaints from mom-and-pop landlords whose tenants have not paid rent throughout the pandemic, while they have to keep up with mortgage payments, property taxes, association fees and other expenses. Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi indicated last week that applications for Oahu’s Rental & Utility Relief Program would reopen soon, but did not give an exact date. See oneoahu.org/renthelp for updates.)
Write to Kokua Line at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu 96813; call 529-4773; fax 529-4750; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.
