When United Auto Workers Local 14 President Tony Totty walked into the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles at 1600 Madison Ave. in May, he learned that it would be his last time at that location.
“They said, ‘Well we’re going to be closing in a month,’ and I asked them, ‘Well where’s the new location?’” he said. “And they said there isn’t one.”
The downtown BMV location closed in June. Lindsey Bohrer, a spokesman for the Ohio BMV, said the deputy registrar at the location retired, and the lease for the building was up. In Ohio, deputy registrars are privately owned, but in other states like Michigan, that’s not the case.
“The Ohio BMV solicited potential contractors to maintain a location at or near the existing location but did not receive interest,” Ms. Bohrer wrote in an email to The Blade.
In Ohio, deputy registrars can help citizens register to vote, issue driver licenses and state ID cards, create and maintain birth certificates and death records, inspect and register vehicles, and initialize and transfer motor vehicle transactions.