St. Charles City cracks down on expired temp tags; asks residents to help report them

ST. CHARLES, Mo. (KMOV) - The City of St. Charles is launching a new initiative to crack down on the number of cars with expired temp tags.

St. Charles is asking for your help in the See Something Say Something Initiative by submitting photos of expired temp tags you see in the city.

Mayor Dan Borgmeyer says although it is now illegal to use your cell phone while driving in Missouri, he’s asking people to safely take photos of expired temp tags. Mayor Borgmeyer says he wants people to take those photos when they are safely stopped, if they are a passenger or if they walk by an expired tag.

“I paid my sales tax on my car that I bought; why don’t you have to,” Mayor Borgmeyer says. “People say they can’t afford it. I’m following a BMW with a tag from 2019. At some point, you have to pay your sales tax.”

Mayor Borgmeyer says residents reached out to his office to complain about seeing the expired temp tags, which is what led to this initiative. So far, he says more than 60 people have reached out to send photos.

Resident Connie Foster says she is tired of seeing cars like this driving around, spotting at least two a day.

“It’s annoying,” Foster says. “I feel like I’m a law-abiding citizen.”

Foster tells First Alert 4 that if she has to pay her taxes, everyone else should, too.

“Driving is a privilege and that goes along with it,” Foster says.

St. Charles City Police Chief Ray Juengst says officers see a lot of temp tags on the road, but they’re too busy responding to other calls to stop them.

That’s where you could help.

“Identify a resident maybe that has a temp tag and the plate comes back to the right vehicle, right make and model and then we find out that resident lives in the city,” Chief Juengst says. “Well, that’s someone we can either A contact or B set up some enforcement on.”

That’s when the police’s traffic unit tries to stop the driver, give them a summons and take away their temp tag.

“Much like a license plate, it’s not your property,” Chief Juengst says. “It’s the property of Department of Revenue. Plus, you can’t renew a temp tag, so once it’s expired, it’s expired. There’s no fixing it, so we remove them as evidence of a crime, and we submit that to courts with the summons and now they can deal with the court system.”

Chief Juengst says some people just don’t want to pay their sales tax.

However, he says some others with temp tags are committing more crimes.

“It’s going to help us identify was that used in a previous crime,” Chief Juengst says. “When it was used in a previous crime, was it used on that same vehicle? Is it now on a different vehicle? Have we seen more than one of those temp tags on multiple vehicles, so maybe we have counterfeiting.”

You can find more information here or send the photo of the expired temp tags to temptag@stcharlescitymo.gov.

Other Metro area agencies are also cracking down on this. In University City, police launched Operation ClearPath, which focuses on increasing public safety, improving community appearance, preventing criminal activity and maintaining roadways.

The enforcement in U-City focuses on derelict vehicles and expired temp tags, which residents can report to an anonymous hotline at 314-505-8725.

A spokesperson for University City tells First Alert 4 that this program will continue within the police department and also expand to the code compliance inspectors so they can assist in handling this.

First Alert 4 also reached out to St. Louis City and County Police. St. Louis County Police says officers will continue to enforce it through traffic stops and other in-person investigations.

SLMPD did not get back to us.

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