Local DMV Goers Met With Surprise, Disappointment On Furlough Day

PALM SPRINGS – “I didn’t have any idea that today was the start of the DMV being closed.”

Sheri Pattison was one of a handful of people who were expecting to take care of vehicle-related business on at the Department of Motor Vehicles office in Palm Springs on Friday.

Some of those people were met with surprise while others were also met with disappointment.

“We pulled into get a handbook and there’s nobody here,” said another DMV goer Ron Medina. “It feels like the sign of the times.”

One after another, people made their way down to the DMV to no avail. The doors were locked and the lights were out.

Furlough Friday was something not going over well with California’s state workers being forced to take two unpaid days off a month.

The effort by Gov. Schwarzenegger is supposed to help solve the state’s $42 billion budget shortfall by reducing state workers’ salaries by almost 10 percent.

“It’s not fair for them because what our government is doing, our governor — it’s affecting not just the people that work here. It’s affecting everybody – us, as lay people, that need to come get a license or just an address change. I can’t do it now,” DMV goer Teresa Irene vented.

The consensus among people who came down to the DMV offices in Palm Springs and Indio Friday was that no one knew the furloughs were happening.

A security guard turned away hundred of people from the DMV on Jackson Street in Indio.

The furloughs are planned for the first and third Friday of every month.