MEET PATTI FLETCHER, NEW U.S. CONSULAR AGENT
By Jackie Peterson

Like many American citi- zens who live in Mazatlan, Patti Fletcher arrived from Seattle on vacation and found the sun and the sea so irresistible, she stayed for good. That was in 1989. In fact Fletcher, at the time a divorcee with a grown daughter living in Portland, Ore., soon became the local representative for MLT Vacations, a charter tour company out of Minneapolis. For five months each winter, she handled all the meeting, greeting and overseeing of groups of tourists arriving from the north. Planting further roots in Mazatlan, she married Juan Ramon Arteaga, a local businessman, in 1993. Recently appointed as new American consular agent, replacing Geri Nelson who moved back to the United States, Fletcher noted that her former job is similar to her new one. Any number of things can happen when charter planeloads of tourists arrive in a foreign city, a place where most of them don’t speak the language. When MLT’s clients would run into problems, Fletcher was always right there to help out. That’s exactly the kind of thing she’s expected to do at the local consular agency, the unit that was created to represent U.S. citizens’ interests in Mazatlan when the consulate closed in the early 1990’s. On the day the Pacific Pearl paid her a call, Fletcher was leaving shortly after the interview to drive a just discharged hospital patient to the airport. The woman had become very ill while on a cruise and when the ship docked here, she was whisked ashore and into intensive care at Sharp Hospital. Fletcher had gone to visit the patient several times at the hospital. She said she wanted to see to it personally that the woman was taken to the aircraft in a wheelchair and properly boarded for her homeward flight — something well beyond a consular agent’s job description. “I’m a people person,” she says, “and sometimes you just need to do a little something extra. That woman is alone here and spent seven days in the hospital. I couldn’t just put her into a taxi and say ‘adios’.” The new consular agent has been working under something of a handicap in the wake of the terrorist attacks in the United States. After she was hired to take up her current post, she was supposed to go to Washington, D.C., for three weeks of training in consular affairs, passports, nationality issues and other matters related to the position. Those classes and workshops were abruptly canceled until after the first of the
year, so meanwhile Fletcher has found herself having to learn on the job. “Geri Nelson was already gone by the time they hired me,” she says, “so she wasn’t around to break me in either. But luckily, she left behind a set of policy manuals that I’m trying to read through as my time permits. And Lety (Leticia Paredes, the consular assistant) has been around here for years. She is enormously helpful, too.” In regard to the national emergency in the United States, Fletcher says she thinks Mexico will be an especially popular destination this winter — “it’s warm, and it isn’t Europe” — so Mazatlan should see its proportionate number of American visitors. And, she adds, “We’re probably safer here.” If American citizens want to register at the consular agency, even though they’re only in town for a month or two, Fletcher says they are welcome to stop by the office any time. She color codes the part-time residents’ registration forms so she can readily see which months they are in Mazatlan. Another aspect of the job is to do what she can when American citizens are arrested, although she says she no longer has the obligationof visiting the ones that are in prison here. The full consulate in Hermosillo has taken over that task, she explains. They periodically send someone on a circuit to visit all the prisoners in their jurisdiction. The agency here does keep English books and magazines for the prisoners and any donations of reading matter for them can be brought to the Pacific Pearl office. In her short time on the job, Fletcher has noticed a lack of information on what American residents of Mazatlan should do to ensure that their wishes are carried out in case of death — especially matters involving disposal of remains and property ownership. It seems that many obstacles can be overcome by making a will in Spanish and having it notarized by a Mexican notary. She has begun to try and clarify procedures “so that we won’t be reinventing the wheel every time these situations come up.” The consular agency, across the street from the entrance to the Hotel Playa Mazatlan in the Golden Zone, is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The new consular agent’s office hours are 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Mondays through Fridays, or by appointment outside those hours. Although her post is not considered full-time, but rather 80%-time, Fletcher is on call 24 hours a day, every day (and night). Yet she doesn’t seem to find that part of the job a hardship. “Honestly,” she says when asked, “I’m doing something I really love.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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