May 21, 2002

Steven Gourley, Director
Department of Motor Vehicles
2415 1st Avenue Mail Station F101
Sacramento, CA 95818

Dear Director Gourley,

Please see enclosed poster.

It is our understanding that material for public display in DMV branch offices must be issued by your office. We would be pleased to supply, at no cost, posters like the one enclosed if your department would issue them for display in the branches. Please let us know if, and how, we can proceed on this project. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Jordan Riak, Executive Director

enclosure

May 29, 2002

Jordan Riak, Executive Director
Parents and Teachers Against Violence in Education
P. 0. Box 1033 Alamo,
CA 94507-7033

Dear Mr. Riak:

Your letter to Director Steven Gourley has been forwarded to my attention as it pertains to the Field Operations Division for which I am responsible. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to address your request to display the Project NoSpank poster in our field offices.

The Department of Motor Vehicles has the pleasure of providing licensing and registration services to over 34 million customers annually. Due to the nature of the services we provide, our clientele consists of persons of legal age to drive, generally 15^1/2 years of age and up. While we recognize the significance of the poster, the focus of your message is outside the arena of the clientele we service.

Although I cannot grant your request, Mr. Riak, I appreciate the time you have taken to contact us. Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of service in the future.

Sincerely,

DOROTHY L. HUNTER, Deputy Director
Field Operations Division

June 15, 2002

Dorothy L. Hunter, Deputy Director
Department of Motor Vehicles
Field Operations Division
P.O. Box 932311
Sacramento, CA 94232-3110

Dear Ms. Hunter,

Thank you for your letter of May 29. We are disappointed by your response. We fail to understand the reasons you gave and invite you to reconsider your decision. This letter is to explain why we believe our message is highly relevant to DMV clientele and to repeat our offer of the notices.

You say, "The Department of Motor Vehicles has the pleasure of providing licensing and registration services to over 34 million customers annually. Due to the nature of the services we provide, our clientele consists of persons of legal age to drive, generally 15^1/2 years of age and up. While we appreciate the significance of the poster, the focus of your message is outside the arena of the clientele we serve."

The age of your clientele essentially includes the age of fertility, and the majority of your customers are or will become parents. Therefore this issue directly concerns them. Some bring their children with them to the branches. The display of no-spanking notices, exactly like the display of the no-smoking notices, would inform all visitors of the undesirability of certain behaviors on the premises. Furthermore, the notices would benefit visitors who find it profoundly offensive and distressing to be obliged to witness others hitting their children.

Our research of materials displayed in a typical DMV branch began at the Walnut Creek branch where we saw these items on display: a poster by the Tom Hawk Foundation with the slogan "Stop Trashing California" promoting recycling of discarded materials, a poster by the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundations promoting awareness of their mission, a large poster by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation showing a picture of an automobile with the caption "Driven to Reagan Country," and, of course, the familiar no-smoking notices.

We applaud your displaying notices urging DMV clientele to recycle their trash, to be aware of the tragic problem of birth defects and to refrain from smoking while inside the facility. Those are valuable messages. But the "Driven to Reagan Country" poster is puzzling. We can't fathom what possible utility such a message has for DMV clientele, all of whom presumably are already driving in California.

The statistics of children being mistreated are frightening. According to EPIC Branch, California Department of Health Services, the number of child victims of substantiated maltreatment for the year 1996 was 20.5 per 1,000 children. (The national rate for the same period was 14 per 1,000 children.) According to the Office of the Attorney General, Criminal Justice Statistics Center, there were 16,867 reports of physical abuse of California children and 25 abuse-related deaths for the year 2001. Primary caretakers are the most frequent perpetrators, and most incidents of physical abuse are explained by perpetrators as having been punishments administered in response to a child's misbehavior--punishments which somehow went awry.

Were our no-spanking notices placed in all DMV branches, they would communicate to visitors that assaulting children is not universally condoned. For some, it would be their first encounter with such an idea. If that message caused just one parent among your 34 million clients per year to hesitate and reconsider before striking, and prevented just one California child from becoming the next child abuse statistic, this project would be justified. So, once again we invite you to join us in helping protect California's children by permitting the Spanish and English no-spanking notices to be displayed in DMV branches statewide.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Jordan Riak, Executive Director

cc:
Gray Davis, California Governor;
Bill Lockyer, California Attorney General;
Steven Gourley, Director, California Department of Motor Vehicles;
List members and readership of the Web site, Project NoSpank, at www.nospank.net

enclosures

July 3, 2002

Jordan Riak
P. O. Box 1033
Alamo, CA 94507-7033

Dear Mr. Riak

In response to your June 15 letter, I appreciate your disappointment in my earlier response to you regarding the display of your posters in our field offices. Please understand that with the multitude of similar requests that we encounter every year, we must be very careful in our determinations of which requests to honor.

I apologize that we are unable to grant your request. As I indicated earlier this should not be taken in any way as a judgment on the validity or significance of your message, only as a considered determination that we believe is appropriate for our offices.

At this point I will consider this matter closed.

Sincerely,

DOROTHY HUNTER, Deputy Director
Field Operations Division

Enclosures

cc: Steven Gourley, Director

MAY WE COUNT YOU IN? Please join the effort to protect children by making a donation today. We'll apply your gift toward PTAVE’s printing and postage costs, the maintenance of this Web site and the continuence of our parenting workshops with inmates in the pre-release education programs at California State Prison Folsom and California State Prison Solano.

We're PayPal Verified!