Fellow Madison County residents are painfully familiar with the slow service that comes with renewing a driver’s license or registering a car in the department run by Mark Craig. Well, now that it’s an election year he is finally trying to do his job.

From the Madison County Record:

Madison County’s license office may soon be moving from its location at Southern Family Market to the old post office on Hughes Road.

License Commissioner Mark Craig spoke about the plans Tuesday at the Madison County Commission’s budget hearings. He said he’d like to move the license office in Madison from its current location in the Southern Family Market on the corner of Wall Triana and Highway 72 to where the old post office building is located on Hughes Road.

…

Craig did ask for more money to help increase the number of employees in order to staff the new larger facilities.

From AL.com:

Q. Why can we not get a driver’s license in the county satellite office in Southern Family Markets on Bailey Cove Road? This would certainly help with other offices that have outgrown their space.

A. Madison County License Director Mark Craig said he is trying to get the state’s permission to issue driver’s licenses at the south Huntsville supermarket. Craig said his office is prepared to buy the more than $21,000 computer system needed to print licenses there as soon as the Alabama Department of Public Safety gives the thumbs-up.

And just think - if you vote for Mark Craig this November in just six short years he’ll start trying to earn his pay again!

Of course, we have a better choice: Susan Newman. She is pledging to increase the efficiency of the Madison County License Department and give us shorter lines. She has some pictures posted of the lines in a couple of the branches - one of which is the Madison Satellite at Southern Family Markets that has made my blood boil numerous times.

Newman’s first objective is to cross-train employees in the satellite offices. This would be a major improvement that would deal with something that I have personally recognized as a shamefully obvious measure that Mark Craig has chosen not to do. Every time I’ve gone to a branch to register a vehicle or get a new drivers license I find myself standing in a very slow line of ten or more people while I watch a couple of employees in the property tax line (well, a line without people) filing their nails, reading magazines, and chatting on their phones. Meanwhile those of us who are missing work to stand in line glare at them - hoping one of them will put down their issue of Soap Opera Digest and help us. It can’t possibly be that hard, all the departments use the same software. Susan Newman would ease our pain and stop wasting tax dollars by working with those departments to make sure all employees can help whatever taxpayers are standing in line.

Too many people don’t pay attention to the “down ballot” races and we’ve found out what happens in Madison County when you do that: you get Mark Craig and long lines. Pause briefly this November before you vote and visualize those long lines you’ve stood in time after time. Then vote for Susan Newman and shrink those lines.

• 2008 Election Recommendations
• Jerry Craig encouraging voter fraud
• Pass the Tums to Jerry Craig
• Madison County Commissioner Jerry Craig wasting our tax dollars
• Election Results - Magenta 2008

This entry was posted by Brian on Sunday, June 29th, 2008 at 8:17 pm and is filed under Madison County, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.