Passport Acceptance Office Has Found A New Home

By Shannon Hicks

The temporary sign that Peggy Jepsen had begun placing outside Newtown Municipal Center earlier this year to let residents and visitors know when she was available as a receiving agent for US Passports has a new place to call home. Ms Jepsen has been invited by Sharon Doherty, who co-owns PJ’s Laundromat with her husband, Dan, to use the office inside the Sandy Hook Center business for her enterprise. Ms Jepsen will begin working at the Church Hill Road location this week.

The laundromat is at 110 Church Hill Road. Access to the building that houses the laundromat, which is set back from the road, is via the driveway to the immediate east of The Iron Bridge Restaurant. Ms Jepsen’s temporary sign will be placed in a raised garden bed opposite the restaurant when the office is open: Thursdays and Fridays from 3 to 6 pm, and Saturdays from 10 am until 1 pm.

“I felt sorry that she was at the municipal center for such a short time,” Mrs Doherty said Monday, March 5. “I thought she had such a great service to offer the community, so I decided to contact her after I read about her office being closed.”

Ms Jepson is collaborating with Daniel W. O’Grady, the prior Judge of Probate from Bethel, on the effort to keep the passport acceptance offices open for the public since the Probate Courts dropped offering this service when they reorganized in 2011. The South Main Street resident who served for more than 20 years as a clerk in Newtown’s Probate Office had begun serving as a passport agent at Newtown Municipal Center on January 26.

She was available to receive paperwork, or help patrons fill out the detail-specific paperwork required of residents applying for or renewing a passport or passport cards, two afternoons each week. She was also available to take photos for passports and passport cards.

“There is a specific, proper way that passport applications must be prepared,” Ms Jepsen told The Newtown Bee in January (“Jepsen To Become Local Passport Agent,” January 20, 2012). “[The State Department, which approves passport applications] handles thousands of applications every day and they want things in a particular order. Otherwise an application will be kicked back. I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

First Selectman Pat Llodra had initially approved of the temporary use of a meeting room at the municipal center, but had to reconsider that decision once residents began questioning the use of the town-owned building for private use.

Varying fees are charged — and paid directly to the State Department — when applying for an adult or minor’s passport book and passport cards. In addition to the application fees, there are postage fees depending on how quickly a passport book is needed.

While applicants are welcome to bring their own photos (which must, like paperwork, adhere to specific criteria), Ms Jepsen has a camera, backdrop, and printer available for those who need to have a passport photo taken. There is a separate charge for photos, along with a $25 service fee per application.

“That’s the same fee charged by the post office, and the standard fee being charged by service agents across the country,” said the passport agent. The service fee is charged whether an applicant is applying for a passport book, passport card, or book and card at the same time.

It was the fees for the photography and the service fees that caused the issue for Ms Jepsen.

“Pat Llodra had heard from a couple of people who said, ‘Hey, that’s private enterprise,’” Ms Jepsen said Monday, March 5. “I think she had her heart in the right place, but she also had to listen to her constituents.”

So less than month after the passport acceptance location at the municipal center was opened, it closed. (“Plug Pulled On Passport Sales At Municipal Center,” February 24, 2012.)

“This was not a money-making venture,” Ms Jepsen said. “I’ve had to purchase software and teach myself how to use it. I bought the ink jets and the paper. There will be a steady need to keep supplies in hand, and that’s where much of the services fees will be going. I have not made any money doing this.”

 “I saw the article two weeks ago that she lost her spot,” Mrs Doherty said. “I tried calling her that Saturday morning [February 25], but I couldn’t reach her. Last Monday I called Pat Llodra’s office and spoke with her about this for a few minutes. She and her staff were able to put me right in touch with Peg, and we started talking about this.

 “I use my office mostly in the morning, so this will be good for her, too. It’s a nice location and I think this will work,” continued Mrs Doherty, who had not met Ms Jepsen before she began talking with her about the passport service.

In what has turned out to be a silver lining for this whole episode, the new location will allow Ms Jepsen to offer additional hours for passport services. She will still have weekday hours on Thursdays and Fridays (shifted to just slightly later than her municipal center hours were), but she is now planning to offer Saturday hours as well, something she was unable to consider at the municipal center, which is open only on weekdays.

“These hours have been set up so that they are convenient to even more people,” she said. “I can help people during the week, parents with kids can come in right after their kids get out of school and still be home before their dinner hour. And now I can also help people on weekends.”

Available Services

And Fees

Residents must apply with a passport agent in person if they are applying for a passport for the first time. They must also apply in person with an agent or at the post office if they are under age 16; if their previous passport was issued when they were under age 16; if their previous passport was lost, stolen, or damaged; if their previous passport was issued more than 15 years ago; or if their name has changed since their previous passport was issued and applicants are unable to legally document the name change.

Parents should note that children under age 16 must appear in person when applying for their passport. Ms Jepsen has complete details for the requirements of parents who are applying for their children’s passport whether it is both parents, one parent when both are unable to sign applications, and even if neither parent is available and a third party in loco parentis applies.

The cost to apply for an adult passport book is $110, while the cost for minors (age 15 and under) is $80.

Ms Jepsen is available to help people who download and fill out their own passport applications (available online at travel.state.gov), and she also keeps on hand all forms available in her office. She assembles the paperwork for passports and passport cards, prepares the mailing, and sends out applications.

“Passports will go out the day they are assembled,” she promised in January. “Even if it’s just one person who comes in for an application, I will get it to the post office that day.”

Once approved, passports are delivered to the applicant’s home address. Priority mail is $4.95, with an additional 70-cent tracking fee, which will have a passport in one’s hands in four to six weeks. Patrons can opt to pay $13.25 for Express Mail, which will return a passport in as quickly as two weeks.

For Expedited Service, which costs an additional $60, applicants must go to a passport agency or center. (Connecticut’s Passport Agency is at 50 Washington Street in Norwalk.)

The State Department began producing passport cards in June 2008. The US Passport Card can be used to enter the United States from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda at land border crossings or sea ports of entry. A passport card cannot be used for international travel by air.

The card is more convenient and less expensive than a passport book. Cost for a first-time applicant is $30, and the cards are valid for ten years. Minors can obtain passport cards, valid for five years, for $15.

 Passport cards increase speed, efficiency, and security at US land and sea border crossing thanks to a vicinity-read radio frequency identification (RFID) chip. There is no personal information written to an RFID chip. The chip points to a stored record in secure government databases. Customs and Border Protection inspectors are able to access photographs and other biographical information stored in secure government databases as a traveler approaches an inspection station. Express service is not available for passport cards.

Application fees can be paid for with personal checks, money orders, and bank drafts, payable to Department of State; or with cash. The application fee is a nonrefundable processing fee that is retained by the Department of State whether or not a passport is issued.

The $25 service fee, paid separately, can be paid with a money order or bank draft, cash or personal check. US Postal facilities can accept credit cards.

In addition to the required paperwork, Ms Jepsen will also help with the photos necessary for passports or cards.

As with the paperwork, passports and passport cards have requirements for applicants’ photographs. They must be done in color, on photo quality paper, measure two square inches (and sized so that the applicant’s head is within certain parameters), taken within six months of the application, and in full-face view of the camera, among other requirements.

Ms Jepsen can be contacted for additional information at 203-770-9157.