Ask Brien

Is there anything about how the office runs right now that you'd actually keep?

Yes, and I want to be clear about this because I think it gets lost.

The passport operation is genuinely well-run. High volume, appointment-based, and the staff handle it professionally. People come in stressed about travel timelines and the team moves them through efficiently. That's worth preserving.

The courthouse facilitator program is valuable. The two staff dedicated to protection orders do some of the most important work in the building — they help people in crisis navigate a process that can protect their safety. I want to expand the visibility of that program, not change it.

The institutional knowledge in that office is real. People who've processed cases for fifteen or twenty years know things that aren't written down anywhere. That's an asset, and I'd be foolish to disrupt it.

What I'm running to change is the public-facing side — the accessibility, the transparency, the proactive communication. The back office works. The front door is where people get lost. Those are different problems.

— Brien Kennedy