Shutdown: A Passport to Confusion

As the U.S. government began to grind into low gear Monday in anticipation of a widespread shutdown, it was the citizens who planned on leaving the country who most acutely felt their government’s absence.

Around Los Angeles and the nation, would-be travelers like Janie Ahn and Susan Steinmetz crowded Passport Services offices, waiting up to five hours in a desperate attempt to get their traveling papers before their government went on hiatus.

The twentysomething Ahn and Steinmetz flew to Los Angeles from Phoenix on Monday morning in what seemed like plenty of time to get passports for a Wednesday flight to South Korea, where Ahn works for a school and Steinmetz hopes to become a teacher.

But their taxi ride from Los Angeles International Airport to the federal building in Westwood was slow. When they finally reached the passport office about 1:30 p.m., they found themselves at the end of a line that stretched onto the lawn.

An hour and a half later--and with the Passport Services offices already crammed with applicants--the doors were closed and Ahn and Steinmetz were among about 75 people left wondering what will become of them.

A passport officer tried to be encouraging, saying that the office will take more applications. But that might not help much, since no one will be in today to process the paperwork, said the service’s regional director, Sakae M. Hawley.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Ahn said. “Nothing is working out.”

Much like the politics that spawned it, the federal government’s shutdown today will be a hurly-burly affair. Closures will be uncertain, even haphazard, with some federal agencies sliding quietly into furloughs and voice-mail mode, while others remain nearly oblivious to the standoff between the President and Congress.

The lack of continuing appropriation legislation from Washington required all but “essential” federal employees to be furloughed at midnight Monday. That will leave air traffic controllers, postal carriers, FBI agents and many others on the job. But some government bureaucrats still were debating late Monday about who among them is truly essential.

The confusion extended even to the Federal Information Center in Cumberland, Md., where an “information specialist” proclaimed that her office would be closed today.

A short time later, her supervisor disagreed.

“We will be open,” said Stephen Smith. “The choice was left to us, and we think there will be a need for our services.”

National forests will be open today because their parent agency, the Agriculture Department, has had its appropriations measure approved for the new fiscal year. Many national parks and monuments, on the other hand, will be closed because the Interior Department will be out of cash.

Those looking for a silver lining in the closures won’t find it in the nation’s pocketbook. A congressional study after a massive closure nearly a decade ago found that the government lost $62 million a day--in salaries, administrative costs and lost productivity--when it shut nonessential services. A study in 1990 projected that a three-day shutdown would cost as much as $600 million more than if it continued normal business.

While many citizens seemed to take their government’s most recent dysfunction for granted, those planning to travel were less sanguine. Passport offices were deluged with applicants, and national park switchboards were alight with calls for information.

At the Reseda Post Office, Sally Metry of Tarzana fumed over the two-hour wait for passport paperwork.

“The people are paying the price,” Metry said, fuming. “We have to pay for this. . . . I think [the shutdown] is mean. It’s not right and it’s downright dirty, to put it plainly.”

Robert Holcomb, who came to renew his passport for a business trip to China, worried that even with an application completed, the shutdown might hold up his paperwork past his December departure date. “Government is so big,” Holcomb said, “most of us have no idea how many ways it will impact us when it closes down.”

Across the country in Washington, an anxious David Bolger, 27, waited in an hours-long line for a passport. “This is something that is going hurt a lot of people, ruin their plans and cost them a lot of money,” said Bolger, who hopes to leave for Italy this weekend.

He speculated that House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and President Clinton would be less cavalier about letting the government grind to a halt if they had to wait in line.

“I mean, Congress doesn’t have to come down here and stand in line for their passports,” he said. “I wonder how things might look if they did have to.”

Travel was a little tenuous as well for those headed to the national parks.

Most rangers and other National Park Service employees were ordered to report to work this morning to receive furlough notices, unless they are responsible for policing, fire protection or critical maintenance.

In the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, that means schoolchildren and others will be turned away from regular ranger lectures and guided hikes at the Rancho Sierra Vista/Satwiwa interpretive center, Paramount Ranch and other popular destinations. Only about one-third of the 77-person staff will be on duty; hikers will be asked to stay off the parks’ trails and to use neighboring state parklands instead, said spokeswoman Jean Bray.

At Joshua Tree National Monument in the desert, the staff would be reduced from about 70 to a dozen, but the facility will keep its gates open until trash collection and other maintenance become problematic, a ranger said.

Yosemite and other large national parks will remain open for the time being, but entry gates, ranger stations and other facilities will be closed. That means visitors can zip through the gates without paying the normal $5 fee, although rangers will still patrol to see that daily camping fees of $3 to $14 are paid. Cabins and other facilities run by the Yosemite Concession Services Corp. will also remain open.

Federal agencies that largely pay their own way, such as the Postal Service, will continue operations as usual, as will Amtrak. Officials at those agencies said it would take months of lost government subsidies for their operations to be affected.

Times staff writers Colleen Krueger in Washington and Aaron Curtiss, Eric Malnic, Tony Olivo and Kate Folmar in Los Angeles contributed to this story.