Unfortunately with minors you have to apply and renew in person

The consumer affairs person finally called back with good news and bad news.

Bad news: nowhere in town can take an appointment, and if I want to make one it's a 4-6 week lead time.

Good news: the one walk-in place *will* be open tomorrow. She said to go early, it draws quite the crowd.

In some cities, libraries will process passport applications. The passport office at the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library is more pleasant than the Post Office.
For the OP, the ML King Jr. Memorial Library has a passport office, and it's near Metro Center. They claim to only do new applications, but it's worth a call to see if they do renewals for children.

202-727-3257
dclibrary.org/passportoffice

I wonder how much of the OP's post is true? I have had my passport since my teenage years and it has always been a 10 year passport. Why would a 10 year old have an expired passport for 3 years?

I would also put the blame on the OP as he should have renewed it before it expired as you can always process the renewal application and mail it in with current pictures. You never know when you may have to travel internationally without much notice or if you need to send it out for necessary visa stamps prior to travel.

I haven't had the need to use my passport since 2013, but I renewed it in 2015 just in case.

OP is correct. It's a different world:
If the passport being renewed was issued to a person before their 16th birthday, the passport must be renewed in person. It's really a bother.
Passports for minors are only good for 5 years.
More Info

Our attempt at the walk-in post office was an epic fail. We arrived an hour early and the queue was already approximately 60 people deep. It's hard to tell how many actual passport applicants were among the 60 people (there were a few kids with parents), but if we assume 50 and ten minutes per applicant, we're talking about a 4+ hour wait for the two people processing applications.

This assumes it really would be two people working the entire time, and the both would be willing to work 2 hours past the posted time for passports, as it's only a 2 hour window to begin with. Since we're talking about a government worker culture here, I wasn't willing to bet on that. We left.

To AMflier's point, some cities have other entities that handle passports. As it turns out, Orange County, California has several of its county offices do it. They have an online appointment booking process and availability 3 weeks out. So we're set up to go there in mid-March, first appointment slot of the day, so hopefully it will be rather painless.

If you're in Kansas City and need a passport that requires an in-person application, the only advice I have is to start the process months in advance. Walk in to a post office and make an appointment for 4-6 weeks later.

Don't know what part of OC you are in but the Placentia Library rocks. Walk in, no appointment, we were in and out in 20 minutes.

http://www.placentialibrary.org/services/passports

Wow...that's fantastic. ^ We'll be down at the DT Doheny Beach (45 minutes away), but I'm sure at some point during the week we'll be passing through/by that area. I'm definitely going to save this information and know we have a backup if there's some sort of issue with our appointment.

Sunday hours even...that's great. I wish we had a library like that around here.

Thanks!

I had a similar experience as the OP with the passport services at my local USPS location. I went there to apply for my son's passport and after waiting for 15 mins in the line, the sweet lady at the counter rolled her eyes and pointed me to the "Notice Board". Duh, should have known to check the notice board first. Anyways, there was a handwritten note saying that Passport services are not available on <list of dates - basically the entire week>. No biggie, I thought I'll try next week. So next week rolls in and its bascially Deja Vu. I find myself in a 15 min wait, run into the same lady at the counter, who (no kidding) does the exact same thing. I run to the notice board and there's a new note on the notice board with a bunch of new dates (basically, the entire week). How did this happen? Next day I went to the county clerk office and was done in 15 mins flat. Passport arrived a week later. USPS, never again.

My update: the Orange County location ended up working out fine for us. ^

Only minor surprise: they do not accept cash *or* credit cards for payment. You must bring something like a cashier's check, a personal check, a post office money order, or (I think) one of those "moneygram" type things you can get from drugstores to pay the passport fee.

I had somewhat expected that a CC might not be accepted, so we made sure to bring ample cash. Fortunately, there was a PO down the street where I was able to get the money order and bring it back to the county office to complete the process.

I learned that at the PO, you must have cash to get a money order, so I was glad I had it on me already. Interesting little foray into the 20th century for me... :)

Weird quirk about the State Department's website: their application status search function is case sensitive and, for us, inserts a very unusual space into my last name. Only reason I thought to search for it is because they've done it on my passport, even though this is not done on my birth certificate or on any other official document anywhere. (I'm always mildly concerned this will someday cause a problem when checking in for an international flight, but to date it has not.)

USPS POs don't issue money orders when using a bank debit card with a PIN? Do they still give some cash back when using a debit card to make a purchase for something else beside MOs?

I've used credit and debit cards to pay for passport fees at US embassies/consulates/passport agency offices.

I didn't ask the postal clerk about a debit card. I tried to use Amex, she said that would not work, and I had the cash ready to go. I suppose if they accept that to buy stamps with cashback, you could effectively get your money order that way (at least for a small amount such as this).

I got the sense that the reason you couldn't use cash or credit was because this was a county office. Sort of akin to using a contract DMV location if those exist in your particular state. I have no complaints at all about it - it was totally low-stress, no queue (just one other guy with an appointment near our time), and a very friendly clerk helping us out.

The only thing they could possibly improve about their process is to insert a short blurb in the appointment email to bring exact payment in one of the accepted forms. The county's portion of the processing fee was paid with a credit card: only the portion sent to the federal government was the MO.