USPS considers hours reduction at Williamsville Post Office

Hot Springs, Va. –

The Williamsville Post Office may have its service hours reduced. The Postal Service is reviewing the Williamsville office and it sent a customer survey to some Williamsville area residents asking for input on alternatives for operation of the Post Office. A Postal Service Community Meeting is scheduled for Wednesday October 24 in Williamsville. Concerned Williamsville resident Pam Webb led an effort three years ago to save the Williamsville Post Office from closure. At that time the post office had lost its lease and was slated for closure, but Webb and the community rallied for the post office and built a new building to house it.

“You know we spent a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of money building the new Williamsville Post Office,” says Webb. “We built it to the standards that the Postal Service wanted. We were very concerned about losing our post office. We didn’t want to lose our identity or our 24487 zip code. Most off all we just didn’t want to lose that service that is available to our citizens, that allows us the availability to mail our packages and mail our letters and have them located where we don’t have to be inconvenienced by driving 25 miles or better one way. “

The Postal Service survey gives four options for the Williamsville Post Office: 1. Keep the post office open, but with reduced weekday window service of four hours per day, with current Saturday hours not changing. 2. Discontinue the office and offer roadside mailbox delivery with retail and delivery services provided through a rural carrier. 3. Find a suitable alternative location operated by a contractor, usually at a local business. 4. Discontinue the office and relocate post office box service to a nearby post office.

According to the letter sent with the survey, after receiving the results from the survey, the Postal Service will examine the responses. And unless the community has a strong preference for discontinuing the post office and offering one of the replacement services, the Postal Service intends to maintain the Williamsville office with four hours of window service on weekdays. The Postal Service says the community meeting is being held to answer questions, provide additional information and share the survey results. The letter also says that the Postal Service will not make a final decision until after the public meeting.

“I am really looking forward to being able to talk to the Postal employees,” says Webb. “I’m hoping that it’s going to be someone from Richmond that will be there that we can talk and get some answers from. And this may be something that we can reverse down the road. I know a lot of things about the post office is revenue driven. If you don’t have the revenue amounts on there, that’s where they start looking first. We can do things to change it. We can do things to make it better. But the biggest thing, I think, that we need to do is to know that our post office has our support and our willingness to fight them and to stand up to them and demand what we need to have in our community.”

The Postal Service Community Meeting on the Williamsville Post Office is Wednesday October 24 at 6pm at the Williamsville Community Center.