Virginia Dept Of Motor Vehicles Opens New DMV Select Office In Monterey

Monterey, Va – Selected Department of Motor Vehicle services have now come to Monterey. Highland County residents will now be able to carry out several transactions with the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles without having to make a trip to Staunton or Covington. This past Monday was the grand opening of Virginia’s newest DMV Select office in the courthouse in Monterey.

Rick Holcomb, Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles and three of his co-workers made the trip from Richmond on Monday to celebrate the opening of the new office. Mr. Holcomb describes the DMV Select Program.

“The DMV Select program is where we partner with either a town or county to provide services” says Holcomb. “We’ve had that as part of our service mode for about 80 years. What we do, is where we can’t build a brick and mortar office and need to provide the service to the citizens, we enter into these partnerships, so it’s a concept that’s been around for quite some time.”

Providing DMV service to isolated rural areas can be a challenge.

“Currently what we try to do to serve the citizens of the Commonwealth, we have 74 brick and mortar offices” he says. “Probably the nearest office to this location would be Covington or Staunton. Our goal though is to say that no citizen of the Commonwealth should have to travel more than half an hour or forty-five minutes to get their DMV work done. We can’t accommodate that without having a good partnership with Highland County.”

The offices of Commissioner of the Revenue, Darlene Crummett and County Treasurer Lois White will share the responsibilities in this effort. In return, the State of Virginia will compensate Highland county in the amount of 4 % of the amount of fees taken in by the office. That amount of business should provide at least 3 to 4 thousand dollars of revenue to the county each year.

The DMV Select office in Monterey can provide service on titles, vehicle registration, license plates, address changes, voter registration applications, handicapped parking placards, overload permits and trip permits. However they cannot issue or renew operators’ licenses. Mr. Holcombe is excited about this new opportunity and is confident that the courthouse staff will provide great service.

“We’ve got a little challenge from the Commissioner of Revenues here,” he says, “she says she’s going to increase those number of transactions and we’re very pleased to have this partnership because what a wonderful location; obviously the county seat, it’s easy to get here. Much easier than to go into Covington or Staunton, so we’re very pleased to be here.”