Community Corner
Passport Service Will Soon Return to Southington
Teamwork between the Town Clerk and Economic Development Office, has allowed residents to receive passports at Town Hall.
The service of receiving passport applications at Town Hall, which was discontinued in January, will resume soon.
When the Cheshire and Southington probate offices merged and relocated to Cheshire in January, residents lost the opportunity to apply for passports locally, Southington Town Clerk Leslie Cotton said.
The probate offices merged as part of the statewide probate district reduction program, and the newly elected probate judge, Matt Jalowiec, works out of the combined office on South Main Street in Cheshire.
Cotton knew that she was not legally able to provide a passport service, since it conflicts with her duty issuing birth certificiates. But after asking for help from fellow town office workers, Economic Development Coordinator Lou Perillo offered to run the service from his office in the basement of Town Hall.
"I hated to see the service leave town because it was so convenient for people to come here," Cotton said. "So we devised a way where my office would help coordinate the service and Lou and his assistant would issue the passports from their office in the Town Hall basement."
Perillo, Deputy Assistant Town Clerk Kathy Larkin and Perillo's assistant Tiffany Atkins have taken the class necessary to accept passport applications and the service should be resurrected by the end of March, Cotton said.
Aside from retaining the estimated $15,000 in income generated by passport issuances each year, Perillo said he wanted to help continue the service because it helps draw possible consumers to the downtown area.
"Anything that can help businesses out like the restaurants downtown is a good thing, so we offered to help," Perillo said. "It shouldn't be too much extra work."
