Parents seek special tags

Families of war dead also want state to waive extra fee

Parents of two soldiers killed in Iraq are fighting for a free special license plate for families that have lost a service member in war.

North Carolina normally charges $10 in addition to the $28 registration cost for such special plates. Dropping the fee would be a small gesture for a state that often brags about being military-friendly, said Betsy Beard of Chatham County, whose son, Spc. Bradley S. Beard, was killed at age 22 by an improvised bomb in Ramadi in 2004.

She, her husband Randy and Paul and Debbie Brown of Lexington -- the parents of Pfc. Stephen P. Snowberger III -- have lobbied legislators and sought other Gold Star families that might want a tag. Snowberger, who was 18, was killed by a bomb, in Baghdad in 2006.

Family members would likely buy only a couple of hundred plates at most, so dropping the fee would hardly drain the state's highway fund, Beard said.

"I lost my son, I lost my future, I lost my chance at him giving me grandchildren, and this would be kind of a small thing they could do to acknowledge the pain and loss of the families," she said. "If I need to, I'll pay the fee, but I'd rather not have to go in and do that every year and be reminded ... that they don't care."

Sen. Bob Atwater, a Democrat from Chatham County, sponsored a bill this spring that would have waived the cost of one plate -- as is done for three kinds of special plates already -- and not required the families to pre-sell 300 plates before the DMV would make them. But the Senate finance committee tacked the fees on again while rolling Atwater's bill into a larger one.

The license tag would feature a gold star on a blue background, a design taken from a lapel pin that the Department of Defense gives "Gold Star" families. Families of U.S. troops lost in any conflict would qualify.

A finance committee co-chairman, Sen. David Hoyle, a Democrat from Gaston County, said Wednesday that he didn't recall the committee's reinstating the fee but said it made sense. There are already more than 150 kinds of special plates, and Hoyle said legislators often file bills trying to get free ones. He said someone has to draw the line.

"Probably half of those [special] tags, someone could make a really good case for dropping the fee," Hoyle said. " ... [P]retty soon you have 800 different kinds of free plates and everyone getting them."

Waiving even the $10 fee, he said, means taking money from the the state highway fund because that $10 is supposed to cover the additional cost of making special plates.

The DMV waives the $10 fee for those who receive four kinds of plates: active duty National Guard troops; Purple Heart winners; Silver Star winners, and winners of the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Three kinds, though, are completely free for those buying just one plate: 100 percent disabled veterans; former prisoners of war, and members of the Legion of Valor (winners of the military's highest medals). Additional plates for them get a break on the $10 fee.

Atwater said that he thinks Gold Star families deserve the same consideration, and that he has talked with House Majority Leader Joe Hackney about making sure the license tag is approved without a fee.