Sean C. Morgan
Foster Post Office will likely reduce its hours and be managed by the Sweet Home postmaster after the first of the year.
At the same time, Cascadia residents, who now have Post Office boxes at Foster, would like better service and a solution to the problems they’ve faced since their Post Office burned in November 2011.
The proposed plan would open the Foster Post Office from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, with a lunch break between 11 and 11:30 a.m. Saturday hours will not change, and the lobby will remain open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. as it is now. The proposal is a reduction of five hours per week.
“The Postal Service, like many businesses today, is facing some serious financial challenges,” said Anthony J. Spina-Denson, Post Office operations manager for the 973 and 974 ZIP codes, with the exception of Eugene and Salem.
The Postal Service is funded by postage, not tax dollars, he said during a meeting held at Foster School on Aug. 12. “People are doing a lot more things online.”
They’re paying bills and greeting each other using the Internet and not the mail, Spina-Denson said.
The Postal Service has lost 40 billion transactions that it doesn’t expect to ever return. In response, the USPS has had to eliminate administrative positions. It’s closed and consolidated buildings, and it’s moved carriers around. It’s frozen pay for some employees, and it still has more to do to make facilities operate more efficiently.
While five hours a week isn’t much, Spina-Denson said, these kinds of changes are multiplied by the 36,000 post offices within the nation.
Two to three years ago, the Postal Service held discontinuance meetings and proposed to close some post offices, Spina-Denson said. USPS officials received a lot of public input and learned how important post offices are in their communities. As a result, the Postal Service created the Post Plan, which reduces hours at post offices or finds alternatives, such as local businesses, to provide postal services. Hours may be reduced to two to six hours per day under the plan.
The Postal Service mailed 413 surveys to the Foster community, of which 154 were returned. The survey provided four options for postal service, including reducing hours, adding delivery service, using a nearby business or switching to another nearby post office.
Some 142 customers preferred a reduction in hours, while three supported delivery service and four supported using a nearby post office. Five surveys did not select an option.
Jean Burger of Cascadia suggested alternating hours on different days.
“You guys shut down before the bankers even come home,” Burger said.
Spina-Denson said that might be confusing and the current hours still end before 5 p.m., but that’s something the Postal Service can consider.
Additional discussion at the meting primarily focused on the difficulties some Cascadia residents have getting their mail, a 20- to 30-mile round trip to the Foster Post Office if they don’t have home delivery.
Bobbie Shervey and her husband Errol, who is a retired postal worker and veteran, live just inside the the Sweet Home Ranger District boundary.
Bobbie Shervey asked whether the Postal Service is saving enough money without a post office in Cascadia that it could add a couple of more miles for road delivery.
For her and her husband, who receives medical supplies from the Veterans Administration, it’s a 30-mile round trip.
“Even if it was delivery twice a week,” she said.
Aug. 13 marked the thousandth day since Cascadia Post Office burned, Burger noted. It ended a 113-year-old presence in the community.
Without even a public meeting, the Postal Service declared it closed, Burger said, noting that the Cave Junction Post Office had a fire and “Cave Junction had a new post office within 10 days.”
Spina-Denseon said the circumstances with each of the post offices was different.
One end of Cascadia receives delivery service, Burger said. The other end doesn’t.
Spina-Denson said he could not promise new routes in Cascadia, but he would take it to Portland where officials could consider additional delivery service.
Bob Hartsock, another Cascadia resident, suggested setting up clusters of mailboxes, something he has seen in Sweet Home. “Why can’t I have a tower at the end of our road?”
Again, Spina-Denson said it’s something he can take back for consideration.
Burger said that Cascadia residents have petitioned the Postal Service three times for rural delivery using the official Postal Service forms and process.
“Is there any way you can sit down and talk about the routes, come up with a solution and help them?” asked Sweet Home Mayor Jim Gourley, who grew up in the Cascadia community.
“People should be able to get their mail whether they live 50 miles out of town, 100 miles out of town, 1,000 miles out of town,” said Lisa Gourley of Sweet Home. “That’s their right.”
“We can take a look at the Cascadia issue,” Spina-Denson said. “I’m not going to promise, but I promise you I’ll look into it.”
Burger asked if the Postal Service would use common sense when it does look into Cascadia’s situation.
Right now, she said, the delibery route comes up Highway 20 to Cascadia State Park and then west on Cascadia Drive. Instead of continuing on and serving all of Cascadia Drive and then returning to Highway 20 at Short Bridge, the postal carrier turns around part way along Cascadia Drive and returns to Highway 20 via Cascadia State Park, leaving a long portion of Cascadia Drive without delivery.
The Postal Service provides free post office boxes to those residents at Foster Post Office.
“We have no common sense,” Burger said. “It went right out the window.”