The Waiting Game

Sometimes they forget. Or they think it’s in that back drawer filled with spiders and dust. Other times they didn’t bother to check the expiration date.

Whatever the reason, whether desperate and annoyed or calm and well-organized, they all come to the same small room at one of the county’s two main passport agencies to acquire that little blue booklet absolutely necessary for international travel.

“I just hadn’t been thinking about my passport and it snuck up on me,” said Shelley Ehler, a Camarillo resident who will travel with her boyfriend to Germany and Switzerland at the end of the month--if she gets her passport in time. “My mom started to stress me out saying, ‘What are you thinking waiting so long.’ ”

Ehler, 28, was one of about 60 people who trickled, every eight minutes according to the appointment schedule, past the line for mail at the Oxnard post office, and into the back room that says “Passports” on the door. It didn’t take her long to get her application stamped, sealed and sent by Maria Kays, the sales manager in Oxnard’s passport office. But it will take a bit longer to actually receive the passport.

The U.S. State Department issues passports to American citizens wanting to travel abroad. Every year, close to 9,000 people get passports through the Simi Valley and Oxnard passport offices. After the application is processed in this county, it is sent to Pittsburgh, Pa., and then rerouted to another destination, often coming back to Los Angeles--before going out to applicants in the mail.

The official wait time for a passport is six weeks, but for a $35 fee, which Ehler paid, travelers can receive it in 10 days. If the trip falls within two weeks, a visit to the passport office in the Federal Building in West Los Angeles is recommended.

The Oxnard office switched from an all walk-in policy to appointments only about two months ago. Although she isn’t supposed to, Kays often takes walk-ins, fitting them in when an appointment is late or doesn’t show up. “I don’t mind walk-ins,” she said. “Things aren’t always so cut and dried that you can make an appointment.”

The Simi Valley office has been operating on an appointment-basis for about a year, but it went from being open two days a week to five just last month. A surge in customers forced both the Simi Valley and Oxnard offices to expand their schedules, officials said.

“We were having 150 people a day near the beginning of the year and people started to complain when they were waiting an hour or an hour and a half in line,” said Ray Chavira, the postmaster at the Oxnard post office. “People must have more money to travel because our number of customers has doubled since last year.”

At the Oxnard office, would-be travelers can make an appointment a day in advance, but the Simi Valley office is booked solid for the next three weeks.

Pamela Garvin of Westlake Village was one of those who tried to visit the Simi Valley office to get a passport for herself and her two children for an end-of-the-month trip to Canada. But the appointments were booked, so she drove to the Oxnard office, only to find her son’s birth certificate from Los Angeles County was not valid.

“We stopped accepting abstracts two years ago,” Kays said from behind the counter.

“I don’t understand why the county would give them out if they aren’t going to work for anything,” Garvin said. “I’m really annoyed.”

With a sigh, Garvin packed up her things, rescheduled for next week and trudged back to her job as a lawyer.

“The easiest people to serve are those who aren’t born in the U.S.,” Kays said after Garvin departed. “All they need is a naturalization certificate.”

Kays said she deals with all sorts of valid documentation that won’t necessarily get people a passport--copies of birth certificates, expired school identifications, expired passports and identification with different last names or missing middle names.

“The trouble is knowing what you need to have and sometimes the people answering the phones aren’t trained to do passports and they won’t know either,” she said.

To obtain a passport, an adult is required to submit a certified birth certificate, naturalization certificate or previous passport. In addition, the person must have picture identification, such as a driver’s license or military ID, as well as two passport photos, which can be taken at the passport office. Two money orders or checks are required: $45 payable to Passport Services and $15 for the U.S. postmaster.

To make an appointment with a passport agency in this county, call the U.S. Postal Service at 1-800-275-8777, press 0 for an operator and ask for the nearest location by ZIP Code.