YAY! The news we've been waiting for!

I am thrilled! This morning I received the following email from the office of Senator Emmett Hanger:

Hello again. We will be happy to file your request for legislation to consider for 2012. Obviously, all 140 General Assembly seats are up for re-election in Nov. After that, we will start filing prospective drafts for legislation and at that time he can review your request again.
Thanks so much!
Holly Herman, Legislative Aide

Image from http://augustafreepress.com

This is wonderful news! A few Beekeeping Club presidents and members recommended that I contact Senator Hanger regarding this since he's done so much in the past for Virginia beekeepers.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Senator Hanger!!

I have one more business item to take care of before I can start collecting applications and fees in a frenzied state, and that is to secure an account in which to deposit the checks for the plate fees. It would be so simple if we could all just make out our check to the DMV for the license plates since they're the ones the money is ultimately going to, right!? But no. We have to put the checks into one account, and then from there write one single big gigantic check to the DMV when we submit the applications in the fall/winter of this year.

Right now it looks like we will either be making our checks out to the Pollinator Partnership themselves (or maybe another organization can help us out), or else I'll look into creating a special non-interest account at the bank for this specific purpose.

(Maybe since they created a new law to increase the required amount of applications & fees to 450, someone else can make a new law to collect the checks all payable directly to the DMV rather than just one big one. I can see why they do it that way but I feel like it makes the whole process seem sketchy from the point of view of people who want the plates!)