Rendering Caesar his due turns quite taxing

THOMPSON E-mail: Click here

© St. Petersburg Times,
published December 8, 2001

A week ago Friday I called the tax collector just to find out when my property taxes were due, and she said "Today." So, for the first time in 10 years living in Tampa, I entered the County Center. (Nice building, great Christmas tree.)

I have an absolute horror of interfacing with any government agency. I've read Kafka -- and he wrote before voice mail menus -- and lived in pre-Giuliani New York. I avoid contact with government by playing absolutely by the rules. I am never late on any payment, never have an expired anything.

Until now.

I never received a tax bill. So, I went downtown to pay the bill, got a parking spot just a half-block away, put in enough quarters for two hours -- it only took about a half-hour -- and came back to see an orange parking ticket on my windshield. I had tons of time left on the meter!

It wasn't for the meter. It was for an expired auto tag.

My tag was expired? I had never received a notice.

I called the tag place, and the woman told me, "The reminder notice is a courtesy of the state. Sometimes you get them; sometimes you don't."

For the past 20 years I got one, and this year I didn't.

Okay, and I could have gone back to the 14th floor of the County Center and paid for a new tag, if only I'd known that's where you're supposed to go.

I also realized that I hadn't changed the address on my driver's license, and, with increased security everywhere, and a 10-year-old photo that shows a woman with dark brown hair and bangs, I could imagine going to the airport and being asked, "Is this information on your license current," answering "No," and being sent to the end of an endless line, missing my plane and ruining my trip.

So on Monday I called -- no, attempted to call -- to find out how to get that done.

In the phone book, there's no listing under driver's licenses or Department of Motor Vehicles. That's because it's called the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. I found that out by skimming the two pages of state listings. I called the offices on MLK and on Hillsborough. The first didn't answer; the second was busy. No automatic announcement to tell us what we all want to know: When are you open?

I called the listing "Motor Vehicles Office." An electronic voice said the number had been changed. I called the new number and got another electronic voice saying, "Sorry, but that account is not in service."

I headed back to the County Center to pay for the tag. Easy enough, and the receptionist told me the only driver's license place open on Monday is at the Tax Collector's Office on Hillsborough, in Horizon Park. "You can't miss it."

Her directions were excellent.

If you knew what or where Horizon Park is.

When you turn off Dale Mabry onto Hillsborough, there is no sign for what I guess is Horizon Park, nor is there a sign for the tax collector or DMV, or, for that matter, DHSMV. I drove west until I'd left the city limits, turned around, doubled back past Dale Mabry and stopped at a gas station/Farm Store.

The woman there told me to go back. "There's no sign for the DMV," she said. "And it's way in the back corner of the center. You could never see it from the street."

When I got to the office, even that sign was obscured by a tree.

Nevertheless, about 4,000 people had managed to find it, and numbers were being called out, worse than Panera Bread at lunch time. Expect, oh, about a 11/2-hour wait, so I was outta there.

But if I hadn't made the trip I'd have never known there's a sports bar up there on Lois called Tight Ends.

This is Tampa, after all.

- Sandra Thompson is a writer living in Tampa. She can be reached at tampa@sptimes.com. City Life appears on Saturday.

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