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State officials to monitor usage of license bureau in Hubbard
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USING THE OFFICE: Two people take advantage of services offered at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles office in Hubbard. The office has been given one year to increase the number of patrons using the facility, or the state will no longer renew its contract.
The state will monitor the site over the next year.
HUBBARD — The state will closely monitor the license services offered inside Truck World here to determine whether to close the office.
The office was slated to close June 27, but the state has extended the contract to the license bureau for one more year. In that year, Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicle officials plan to closely monitor the usage by patrons.
The office has been operating inside the Truck World facility for more than 32 years.
Robin Gibson, the deputy registrar operating the Hubbard office, said she cannot talk about the potential closing per state mandates, but she did provide public-record figures showing the amount of business the office does in a year.
According to Gibson, the office does more than 37,000 transactions a year, which means about $130,000 in profits to the state. She said the office does about $4 million in total business.
Tim Schubert, manager of the Truck World facility on Truck World Boulevard, said revenue is only one reason to keep the Hubbard license bureau location open. He said another is convenience, especially to truckers who stop at the facility and those living in the northeast part of the county.
“Another big reason [to keep the bureau open] is jobs,” he said, adding that those jobs would be eliminated if the bureau closes.
Lindsey Bohrer, public information officer for the Ohio Department of Public Safety, which includes the BMV, said the state looks at a variety of factors in deciding to open or close a license-bureau office. She said some of the things considered are population, number of transactions and number of locations nearby.
She said the number of transactions at the facility may seem impressive to some, but the state compares those figures to the area’s population base. When those figures are compared, she said, the usage may look a little different.
Bohrer said the figures will be monitored over the next year.
Schubert said another disturbing point about the potential closing is what he sees as disproportionate number of license bureaus in Mahoning County in comparison to Trumbull. If the Hubbard bureau closes, that would leave just three deputy registrar offices in Trumbull, but there would be five in Mahoning.
Bohrer said the state is required to have only one location per county, and it tracks the distance between license bureau offices.
jgoodwin@vindy.com