Reopening passport offices benefits county

Need a passport? Tarrant County can now help you with that — again.

The county didn’t have any passport offices for more than a year, but now two county offices have reopened.

Plans for more offices are in the works.

The six passport offices in the county were shut down more than a year ago in mysterious circumstances.

Last year, Tarrant County District Clerk Tom Wilder said he couldn’t uphold a change in State Department conditions, but neither party would reveal what caused the dispute.

Regardless of the reason behind Tarrant County sclosing the passport offices, reopening them benefits the area.

Before the close, the county processed around 33,000 passport applications in 2015. Some local post offices took applications, but it became more difficult for travelers to get passports.

The first two reopened offices will be in Southlake Town Square and the Fort Worth Southwest Subcourthouse, places in “what historically have been the highest demand areas for the service,” the county announced.

Both locations will accept passport applications and take photos from 8 a.m to 2:15 p.m., giving North Texans more convenience in obtaining this all-important foreign travel document.

This story was originally published August 10, 2016 at 6:02 PM with the headline "Reopening passport offices benefits county."