The Lincoln Police Department received a complaint Monday that a vehicle has been parked in a local driveway for two years with expired Hawaii license plates.

But because the vehicle was parked in a driveway, the police were powerless to do anything about it, short of conducting a stakeout to bust the owner if they drive the vehicle off the private property into the public domain.

“I don’t have the personnel to stake vehicles like this out,” Lincoln Police Chief Tom Casady said.

He’d like to change that.

Casady asked the City Council to amend city ordinance to allow police to go after improperly registered vehicles that are parked in “quasi-public” places, such as driveways and private parking lots. Basically, “anywhere a door-to-door salesman can go.”

Currently, officers can only ticket the owner if the vehicle is on a street. And they’re getting plenty of violators doing just that: Last year 21,448 warnings and tickets were written for vehicles with expired registrations or no license plates, as well as vehicles that weren’t registered in the correct county or state. Vehicles must be registered in the county they are in most often.

People who move to Lincoln have 30 days to get the vehicle registered (there are exceptions for college students and members of the armed forces). There are 266,616 vehicles registered in the city, and Casady estimates about 10 percent of them aren’t properly registered, resulting in thousands of dollars of unpaid taxes.

The change would help police enforce registration laws, which police have been focusing on since early last month. The council will likely vote on the proposal during its next meeting on Monday.

Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.