The plates are off the table.
The controversial plan to require state motorists to spend $25 for new license plates they don’t want appeared to be dead in the water last night.
Gov. Paterson said yesterday that he’s willing to reconsider the fees he wanted to charge for new retro blue-and-gold plates if lawmakers can come up with ways to save the $129 million Albany would have collected by forcing people to purchase them.
Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) said yesterday he and Minority Leader Brian Kolb (R-Canandaigua) are ready to repeal the mandatory license-plate replacement.
“The plan to issue new license plates for all vehicles will not go forward,” Silver said in a statement.
“We understand that the governor is committed to this repeal, and we will work with him.”
The fees — passed by the Legislature as part of the 2009-2010 budget earlier this year — were supposed to be $25 for the new plates plus $20 to keep the same number.
Beginning in April, drivers would have to pay up when they renewed their registrations.
All New York vehicles were to be converted by 2012.
It wasn’t known if the state would still make people replace their plates — and if so, whether they’ll be blue and gold — once the fees are repealed. The proposed measure drew an outcry from motorists; more than 100,000 people signed an online petition to protest it.
Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos (Nassau) expressed his opposition to the fees yesterday, calling it a “lame-brained plan.”
Upstate and suburban Senate Democrats raised the issue last week during budget negotiations, according to Senate Democratic spokesman Austin Shafran.
“We have reached an understanding with the Assembly and governor to work with us” to search for alternate funds to make up for repealing the license-plate fee, he said.