Countywide : Fillmore May Limit Passport Requests

The city of Fillmore is considering reducing the hours they process passport applications after a recent run on them at City Hall. But the City Council decided Tuesday to wait and see if Friday-only service at Oxnard’s post office will take the pressure off Fillmore.

However, the council did approve a $5 increase in the city’s fee for passports. With federal fees due to increase Nov. 1, people will pay $70 for passports that now cost $45.

The passport business has been booming in Fillmore since the Oxnard post office stopped processing applications last week. Demand for the service, instituted as a convenience for residents, has jumped from an average of 50 requests per year to as many as 11 a day in the past week, city staff members said.

“Every time you walk in between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., there’s someone getting a passport,” City Clerk Noreen Withers said. “The ladies that do passports can’t get their other work done.”

Officials in Oxnard’s post office at 1961 North C St. had planned to cut passport services entirely, said Gary Gardetto, director of marketing and communication for the U.S. Postal Service in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. Most C Street employees have been moved to a facility on Colonia Road that lacks an area to serve the public, leaving insufficient staff at C Street to handle requests, Gardetto said.

However, “we’re responding to public need” by reinstating passport services at the C Street office between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Fridays, he said.

Simi Valley and Fillmore are the only cities in Ventura County where people can apply for passports between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. daily. City halls in Camarillo and Oxnard discontinued the service recently because staff members were overburdened, officials said; Thousand Oaks limits its passport services to its residents.

While city governments are free to choose if they will provide passport services, certain post offices are mandated to process them, said Sakae Hawley, regional director of the Los Angeles Passport Agency. Hawley said the Los Angeles office had “expressed its concern to Washington” about the Oxnard post office’s move to discontinue service.

Whether the Oxnard post office increases its service hours for passports will depend on public demand, Oxnard Postmaster Ray Chavira said.