Specialized license plates: professional sports.

Existing law establishes a specialized license plate program and requires the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to issue specialized license plates on behalf of a sponsoring state agency if the agency receives 7,500 applications within a 12-month period, among other requirements. Existing law requires the DMV to charge specified additional fees for the issuance, renewal, or transfer of specialized license plates, and requires the DMV to deposit the fees, less the DMV's costs, into the Specialized License Plate Fund. Existing law requires that moneys in the fund be allocated, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to each sponsoring agency in proportion to the amount that is attributable to the agency's specialized license plate program. Existing law authorizes the sponsoring state agency to use these moneys to fund projects and programs that promote the state agency's official policy, mission, or work. This bill would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to apply to the DMV to sponsor a license plate program for the issuance of license plates bearing the officially licensed logo, emblem, or trademark provided by a participating California professional sports franchise, and would require the DMV to issue specialized license plates in different designs that bear the logo, emblem, or trademark of an individual California professional sports franchise under that program if the Department of Veterans Affairs complies with the 7,500 application requirement for an individual design. The bill would impose specified fees for the issuance, renewal, or transfer of those license plates, and would require the funds to be deposited into the California State Parks Account created by the bill, after DMV administrative costs are deducted, to be allocated to the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Challenged Athletes Foundation, as specified. The bill would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to develop monitoring and reporting guidelines to ensure that the funds allocated to the Challenged Athletes Foundation are being used for the purposes specified in the bill. Existing law, with certain exceptions, imposes certain design criteria for specialized license plates, including, among other things, that the license plate provide a space not larger than 2 inches by 3 inches to the left of the numerical series and a space not larger than 58 of an inch in height below the numerical series for a distinctive design, decal, or descriptive message. This bill would, notwithstanding those provisions, authorize the Department of Veterans Affairs to accept and use the officially licensed logos, emblems, or trademarks, as applicable, provided by California professional sports franchises for the specialized license plates in a design that the department determines, in consultation with the Department of the California Highway Patrol, does not obscure the readability of the license plate.