KPBS Midday Edition

Tech Entrepreneur Takes Over California DMV

By Pat Finn / Producer , Mark Sauer / Host, The Roundtable

Published September 3, 2019 at 11:15 AM PDT

This story was published more than 5 years ago.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles office in the Arleta neighborhood of Los Angeles is seen Tuesday, April 9, 2019.

California's Department of Motor Vehicles has a reputation, and it's not a good one, unless you're a fan of long lines and balky software. Governor Gavin Newsom has made modernizing and improving the DMV experience a priority. He appointed tech entrepreneur Steve Gordon to head the agency, with the expectation that things will change, in a good way.

In the preface to Governor Gavin Newsom's 2013 book, "Citizenville," he writes that the state's Department of Motor Vehicles is on the cutting edge, of 1973.

Newsom, who believes Californians "are outraged by their experience at DMV," has made fixing it a priority. In July he named Steve Gordon, a tech entrepreneur, to move the agency closer to the current century.

Gordon, 59, is a California native who worked for a time for the San Diego County auditor and eventually became a Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

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Gordon will have more challenges than long lines and old computers. The agency expects as many as 28 million applicants for the new driver license Real ID, which people who don't have passports, military ID or other federally accepted identification will need for airline travel by late 2020. The 2018 version of the DMV's Motor Voter program was a symphony of problems resulting in tens of thousands of duplicate voter registrations, over 7,000 of them in San Diego County. And a state audit this year found "significant problems" with staffing levels and management practices.

The state increased the DMV's budget last year and added another $242 million to address the Real ID rush. The question is, will that be enough?

Gordon joined Midday Edition Tuesday to talk about the future of the DMV.

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Pat Finn

Pat Finn previously served as a producer for KPBS Midday Edition and KPBS Evening Edition. Finn began her career in broadcasting at KTLA and KCET in Los Angeles. In 1979 she became KPBS’ Public Information Director, then Director of Advertising and Promotion, Program Director, and Director of Broadcasting. She oversaw the station’s local and national productions, including the one-hour documentary Los Romeros: The Royal Family of the Guitar, and Child Protective Services, a one-hour look inside the San Diego County agency responsible for the welfare of at risk children. Both programs also aired on public television stations nationwide. Finn has earned honors from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Pacific Southwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

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Mark Sauer

A newspaperman for more than 30 years, Mark Sauer joined KPBS in October 2010 and previously served as the host of the KPBS Roundtable. He spent 27 years as a reporter and editor at The San Diego Union-Tribune after stints at The Houston Post and at two papers in his native Michigan. A features/human-interest writer in the UT's Currents section for many years, Mark also spent about a third of his UT career as an editor and reporter on the Metro Desk. He has covered a wide range of events: Wild fires in Southern California and Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast; Super Bowls and the World Series; foster care and child-abuse issues; the Roman Catholic Diocese's sexual-abuse scandal and bankruptcy; royal visits of Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles and Princess Diana; Republican and Democratic national conventions; high-profile criminal trials; and many other stories, from the silly to the sublime. Along the way, he interviewed everyone from presidents to pan-handlers. His work exposing the false accusations and prosecutions of several San Diegans for murder, rape and child abuse garnered Pulitzer Prize nominations and many regional and local journalism awards, including Best in the West, the Sol Price Award for Responsible Journalism and several San Diego and California bar-association awards. Mark has a degree in journalism from Michigan State University.

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