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Post Office Closure Meeting

May 9, 2011

by Derek Taylor

On April 13, a meeting was held at Rideout Community Center concerning the possible closure of the Tahoma post office. In addition to some of the local employees, the postal service was represented by Renee Brown, Manager of Post Office Operations, and Loretta Kirkpatrick, Manager Consumer Affairs. There were roughly thirty members of the community present, including myself.

We learned that the Postal Service has initiated studies on two thousand local offices in order to streamline expenses (there are 32,000 local branches across the country). The Postal Service representatives stressed that this was just a study and no decisions had been made. A questionnaire was delivered to Tahoma PO box customers, and the responses cited many reasons the Tahoma office should not be closed, including driving distances, financial hardship, dangerous winter driving, pollution, and people with no transportation.

The solution being considered was setting up a "cluster box" inside the Homewood post office that would serve the Tahoma residents, with box numbers being kept the same (so no address changes would be needed). The overwhelming response by community members in the room was that the Homewood post office was inadequate in terms of size, parking, and winter access, and that it made more sense to close the Homewood office than the Tahoma office.

The Postal Service reps responded that the Homewood office was not part of the current closure study, but perhaps it needed to be. They told us that the number of people in the room was the largest they had seen in any of their closure meetings so far, and the large response carried weight with them. I left the meeting with the sense that the Postal Service had heard our concerns and would consider them.

I received a letter in my PO box recently stating that the study to close the Tahoma branch has been discontinued, and there will not be any closure. I'm very happy with this outcome and glad that a large bureaucracy like the post office can still hear local voices and respond accordingly. Power to the people! Thanks to everyone who returned their questionnaire and/or showed up to the meeting.

Respectfully submitted,
Derek Taylor
Tahoe Cedars Property Owners' Association

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