Pilots' license plate stuck in Senate traffic

Recipients of America's top military award for aerial heroism got a standing ovation when they made their case to the state Senate last month for a special license plate bearing the medal's image.

It wasn't a vanity thing. The 49 members of the Northwest Chapter of the Distinguished Flying Cross Society have been on a mission since last year to help underprivileged high school kids who want to fly realize that dream. They counted on the small amount generated by the special license fee to help fund a scholarship.

Now, however, the Senate is facing a bottleneck of bills as the session draws to a close, and the fliers' hopes that Senate Bill 6249 will pass are about to crash and burn by 5 p.m. Tuesday.

It all has the Flying Cross recipients feeling double-crossed.

"I feel like we've been duped," Allan Hagelthorn, president of the chapter that counts 3,000 medal holders in the Pacific Northwest, including 50 in Seattle, said yesterday.

He was awarded his medal for piloting his B-52 on a dangerous special mission during the Persian Gulf War to help Navy SEALs secretly deployed around Baghdad. Hagelthorn's plane flew without fighter escort, performing some hair-raising maneuvers to narrowly dodge a slew of missiles.

The petition for a patriotic license plate is one of scores that legislators must consider each session, ranging this year from kite fliers to dog lovers to commemorators of the Lewis and Clark bicentennial and bicyclists.

Hopes were buoyed after the veteran aviators went to Olympia last month and saw their proposal fly through the Transportation Committee after others were carefully scrutinized or shot down.

"It was hailed by the members. They walked over to shake our hands and gave us a standing ovation for our accomplishments and sacrifices," Hagelthorn recalls.

"We heard things like 'this is the perfect time to introduce this bill, patriotism is high,'" Hagelthorn said.

"We heard nothing more until Thursday, and then only because one of our members active in lobbying saw it and told us. Now we're hearing 'the bill is dead. It could take three to five years,'" he said. "We counted on this to help with the scholarship project."

State Sen. Ken Jacobsen, D-North Seattle, who sponsored the bill, however, said it's not dead, just barely alive.

"I haven't given up on it yet," Jacobsen said yesterday. "The problem is we are trying to get it through a narrow funnel point," as the Senate tries to hear and debate piles of bills in the waning days of the session.

Even if the bill somehow flies through the Senate, chances are it will be shot down in the House.

Rep. Ruth Fisher, D-Tacoma, chairwoman of the Transportation Committee, said she won't let any bills to establish new $75 special license plates through. It became clear five years ago that they cost more money than they generate, she said.

Fisher said she has requests from 96 organizations for their own special plate.

"We never recover the cost and we just put an end to all the new license plates," Fisher said.

"License plates are for identification. They're not to tell the story of your life."

P-I reporter Angela Galloway contributed to this report.

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