Island motorists with business at the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) can breathe a sigh of relief. The office, located in the Martha’s Vineyard Airport business park, reopened Tuesday. Since Friday, Feb. 6, the Martha’s Vineyard RMV office has been closed. A handwritten sign taped to the inside of the door stated: “RMV is closed due to issues with Verizon. Please check online at MASS DOT/RMV to see when we will be reopened — or go online to do transaction, or call 1-857-368-8200 for further information. Closest RMVs are Fall River or South Yarmouth.”
RMV spokesman Mike Verseckes told The Times a faulty data-circuit run by Earthlink was the problem.
“When this happens, we are unable to process customer transactions,” he said in an email to The Times. “Combined with the weather and the recent holiday, this has impacted the level of service we have been able to offer our customers this month.”
Mr. Verseckes said Verizon worked with Earthlink during the repair process.
“The RMV was in close communication with these companies as they were troubleshooting the problem over the course of the past week,” he said. “Late on Friday afternoon, Feb. 13, a fix was finally made and confirmed functional. We opened for business Feb. 17.”
Mr. Verseckes noted that last year the registry processed 4 million online transactions. He recommended that Islanders consider the option of doing their RMV business through the web. But he also made clear that the RMV was sorry anyone on the Vineyard was unable to complete business the traditional way.
“We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused,” he said. “We strongly encourage customers to visit our web site, massrmv.com, and see if they can conduct their business online first. As a reminder, more than 35 transactions may be processed on our web site.”
