Fort Valley residents rally for post office
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Recommend ThisRural mail center faces reduction in hours, local patrons fear fate of officer-in-charge
By Preston Knight -- pknight@nvdaily.com
FORT VALLEY -- Residents registered their discontent with a proposal to reduce hours at their post office Wednesday night, and in another week, they should have a 60-day window to lobby against it some more.
The U.S. Postal Service held a community meeting at the Fort Valley Volunteer Fire Department on Wednesday to explain the agency's need to consolidate the local post office into a branch of the Strasburg facility, cutting the time the local retail counter is open in half to four hours each day. Officials estimated that at least 150 people attended.
Heading into the meeting -- and at it, attendees said -- there appeared to be some confusion as to what the Postal Service had planned. Some people thought the local office was going to close, which users are adamantly against because of the distance to the nearest facilities in Strasburg and Edinburg.
On Thursday, Dennis Voorhees, the manager of post office operations for the Northern Virginia District, said the confusion may have come from the fact that a questionnaire sent to residents included the words "closure" and "consolidation." The plan, he said, was to reduce hours in Fort Valley, and an official notice should be posted in the next week, which would start a 60-day comment period.
"I prefer it open as it is," Fort Valley resident Grace Maslyn said Thursday. "Different people have different needs here. ... Our post office is so unique because there are so many special needs here."
Officer-in-charge Teresa Tamkin said that Fort Valley has nearly 200 home-based businesses. She has worked at the post office for 22 years, and has been the officer-in-charge since the postmaster retired in 2009.
The hours that the Fort Valley post office may close have not yet been decided. All non-retail functions of the office will not be affected, Voorhees said.
One of the concerns resident Tom Drinkwater has with reduced hours is the reduction in time available for when he needs to sign for a package. He also thinks the Postal Service is not considering the social aspect of the facility, and how it serves as a community gathering place.
"They were only interested in numbers," Drinkwater said Thursday.
The Postal Service conducted a two-week study of operations in Fort Valley before concluding that Tamkin did not have enough work to justify an eight-hour day. Maslyn and Drinkwater questioned the validity of what the study showed because it was done in May, when farmers were in their fields.
But the residents were also concerned about Tamkin's future. She was appreciative of that.
"A lot [at the meeting] were concerned about me. They feel I am being put out of a job," Tamkin said. "That made me feel good."
Wednesday's meeting was the second session to focus on the future of a post office in the region in recent weeks. The Star Tannery post office is further along in the process, with a 60-day comment period on a proposal to close the facility recently ending.
Voorhees said a decision may come in the next week.
He said Fort Valley residents should be prepared to comment in their 60-day period because nothing is official yet.
"A lot of people think that," Voorhees said. "It's not a done deal until headquarters decides."
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Turn out the lights, the party is over.
Queue the large lady.....