By DAVID CLOUSTON

Salina Journal

Precision is expected from the state agency that collects citizens' taxes and fees. Not so much, Salinan Bill Weaver found out Wednesday, when it comes to counting sunsets.

What Kansas Department of Revenue officials in Topeka late Wednesday afternoon were calling "a huge mistake," ended the day on a sour note for Weaver, who started the day with a celebration.

"How often do you have happy news coming from the Revenue Department?" Weaver said. At about 10 a.m., he got the call from Topeka officials telling him his entry in a competition to design a new personalized license plate was judged the winner by the voting public.

Since Weaver's design became one of five finalists to replace the current personalized plate, featuring a buffalo, Weaver said he's gotten support and votes online from friends and acquaintances all over, from New York to California.

The governor was to hand him the first plate at a ceremony with state officials scheduled for no later than December 2009, a month ahead of when his plate featuring a windmill set against a prairie sunset would become available statewide.

"To see my work on cars across the state is going to be fun," Weaver had said earlier Wednesday. He's a video production manager at Mid-America Productions, 1510 E. Iron, and is widely known for his involvement with local amateur and high school theater productions.

He spent the morning telling friends the good news and speaking with news reporters.

Now you're crushed

Then Weaver was crushed by the news that the overwhelming vote for the winner of the contest was for another license plate design -- not his.

"I cannot believe a day can go from so bright and having so much fun ... I accept their apology but it doesn't make the hurt go away," he said. "In my gut, I hurt really bad."

Weaver's design of a silhouetted side view of a windmill set against the prairie was close to another design featuring a sunset, a windmill and the state seal.

Close enough, it turned out, that department officials confused the two.

Department officials first told Weaver he had crushed the competition. Then after the mistake came to light, they offered that the contest might be decided a tie, after promising to recheck the votes.

Finally, they owned up that the vote totals were right, but the motor vehicles division got the result wrong. Then they called Weaver back to notify him he had finished third.

"There can only be one winner, and there is only one winner," said Freda Warfield, a spokeswoman for the Department of Revenue. The department oversees the division of motor vehicles, which set up the contest.

"We have made a huge mistake."

She said Weaver would still be recognized in some fashion, Just how remained under discussion Wednesday.

Warfield blamed the error on an office staff member who assigned the winning design to Weaver.

An embarrassment

As a result, Carmen Alldritt, the director of motor vehicles, made a congratulatory phone call to Weaver Wednesday morning notifying him of the win. It was the first time state officials have held a competition to design a new license plate.

"It's an embarrassment," Alldritt said.

Alldritt and Warfield said the winning designer is from Topeka. They withheld the designer's name because they weren't able to notify that person Wednesday that they'd won.

Kansans were asked to vote for one of five designs chosen for the competition by the Department of Revenue. Voters could cast their votes electronically through the department's Web site, or by filling out paper ballots at their county treasurer's office between April 1 and April 30.

The department's error came to light Wednesday afternoon after it briefly posted a news release on its Web site with the winning plate design, but incorrectly identifying Weaver as the designer.

The winning design received 83,739 votes, more than 9,700 votes ahead of the second-place design, featuring windmills, wagon wheels and the state seal.

Alldritt responded initially to questions about the mixup by trying first to excuse it due to a tabulation error. Then, because the vote was "close, really close," and the designs were "awfully similar," she suggested Weaver and the other designer should share the honor by having their designs incorporated.

Actually, Weaver's plate finished a distant third with 42,945 votes -- 40,794 votes behind the winner.

Alldritt also said she surmised there had been a mistake when she saw that "two million people had voted" overall. A decimal point got moved in the results, she said.

Yet the department's initial Web site announcement correctly reported there had been more than 200,000 votes cast.

Alldritt promised the votes would be retabulated and the mess straightened out -- eventually.

"The guy who's working on this leaves at 3:30 p.m. I don't speak that computer language," she said. She promised to have retabulated results today.

Share the award

She also said by incorporating the sunset designs, each designer would have a "huge, huge roll" to play in making alterations that usually are needed to make sure the design doesn't exceed budget and safety requirements. The Kansas Highway Patrol has to pass judgment on the design's visibility.

"We know we have the most beautiful sunsets of any state. I think it's a tremendous honor for both these folks, to share it and have a license plate on the road," Alldritt said.

That news didn't sit well with Weaver, who said he would be disappointed having his design altered or incorporated with another's.

"Wouldn't you?" he asked. "I don't think that's right."

Finally, later in the afternoon, Alldritt and Warfield spoke again from their office. They said they stood by the original voting numbers, and offered up an apology for the mixup.

Let's do it again

It was a different tone than the one that Bonnie Brown, assistant to the director of motor vehicles, took earlier in the day when asked about the success of the design contest.

"We're looking at doing something similar for our regular plate when it comes due," she said. Personalized plates go through a redesign every five years, while regular license plates change every seven years.

"We like to involve the public when it's a happy thing," Brown said.

The new personalized plate is scheduled to go into production in 2010, and Weaver said he likely still will buy one. It won't, however, be the first one made -- that honor goes to the designer. And it won't bear the message some Central High School drama students whom Weaver works with cleverly suggested -- MYDEZIN -- for "my design."

"I'm looking forward to going ahead and buying one of those sunset plates for my car. Their design is OK. It's got color on it, and that's what I wanted."

n Reporter David Clouston can be reached at 822-1403 or by e-mail at dclouston@salina.com.