City Clerk: Year-Round City Sticker Sales Makes Design Contest Obsolete

By Chuck Sudo in News on Apr 3, 2013 7:40PM

Chicago City Clerk Susana Mendoza (Photo credit: Patrick L. Pyszka/City of Chicago)

For the second straight year the design for the Chicago city vehicle sticker will be handled in-house by the City Clerk’s office. City Clerk Susana Mendoza told the Chicago Sun-Times the move is related to her proposal to move city stickers to year-round sales and not the controversy over last year’s city sticker artwork contest.

Last year’s contest was marred by controversy when the police blog “Detective Shaved Longcock”* claimed the winning entry by Herbert Pulgar of Lawrence Home Youth Services contained gang symbolism.

Mendoza eventually pulled Pulgar’s design and, when the family of the runner-up didn’t want her design to be used, Mendoza’s office produced a design on which everyone could agree.

Mendoza said scrapping the contest is related to her plan to offer city sticker sales year-round, which she revealed last month and was approved by the City Council Finance Committee Wednesday. Under the plan, city sticker purchases will be required six months before a vehicle’s license plate is renewed. Example: if your car’s registration expires in June, you need to buy your city sticker in December.

Mendoza told the Sun-Times the city sticker contest became outdated as soon as her office decided to make the year-round sales a reality.

“We will have different months of expiration. People charged with enforcing the sticker helped design it so it’s easy for them to see when it expires. It doesn’t have much room at all for any fun designs,” she said.

“The bulk of it will state the month and year of expiration. The rest will have information specific to that vehicle, including make, model and partial VIN number. That is an anti-counterfeit measure. To do it any other way is just not feasible.”

Mendoza said the move to year-round sales requires a sticker design that makes it easier to determine when a vehicle owner needs to buy one.

* For those who care, the person behind Detective Shaved Longcock is looking to sell the website. Judging from what passes for content there in the past and its current dormant status, you can probably buy it for a tub of Italian beef and a series of vintage lawn jockeys.