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Polk County got state to change to more mobile units

COLUMBUS—After recently announcing Polk County’s Driver’s License unit would only be available during the months of April and October this year, Polk County officials reached out and got it changed. 

The driver’s license unit will now be available one Thursday a month at the Polk County Tag and Tax Office in Columbus. The first one for this year will be on Thursday, Jan. 9. 

For 2019, the office was open the first three Thursdays a month, but state officials sent the county an email in December saying the 2020 schedule was changing to only the first three Thursdays in April and December. 

Polk County Manager Marche Pittman sent state officials an email and spoke to them in response saying he was disappointed in the state’s decision and did not believe the state’s figures on low numbers of people coming for service were correct. 

The original notification from the state was sent from Brenda K. Anding, Program Coordinator II with the Division of Motor Driver Services/North Carolina Department of Transportation saying Polk County’s numbers were low. 

“I must say that I am very disappointed to hear that limiting visits for our Drivers License Mobile Site is even being considered,” Pittman said to Anding. “I have personally been to our crowded office a couple of different times and my staff tells that it is always full of people.” 

Pittman said this is a huge impact to the local community and Polk County’s population is 35 percent over the age of 65, with those residents having a hard time driving a long distance to sit in a busy waiting area of a regional office. 

“Further, the regional offices can barely handle the traffic they have now, much less adding the traffic from our mobile unit office to that total,” Pittman said. 

The tax office moved from the Womack building a few years ago and added a DMV office for tags as well as the state sending the mobile unit three Thursdays a month for drivers licenses. 

Following are the new dates for the mobile unit to visit the office, located on Walker Street in downtown Columbus. All dates are on Thursdays. 

Columbus (Polk County)

January – 9th

February – 6th

March – 5th

April – 9th

May – 7th

June – 4th

July – 9th

August – 6th

September – 10th

October – 8th

November – 5th

December – 10th