By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
SEAL ROCK – Unless someone steps up to rent building space and lease mailboxes to locals, Seal Rock residents will have to set up neighborhood sites to get their mail delivered starting Nov. 1.
That was the message Wednesday from Waldport Postmaster Peter Roina to more than 70 residents during a community meeting to discuss repercussions of the end of a longtime contract post office Oct. 31.
The person who holds the contract and leases space with 480 official Post Office boxes and a sales window is retiring and the U.S. Postal Service no longer issues such contracts. The same issue is cropping up in South Beach, where the contract is up Aug. 30.
Now, the Postal Service will only contract with someone who leases mailboxes not affiliated with the federal agency, Roina said, who can rent private boxes for whatever price people will pay.
“I know it was a shock to you that we’re closing down an office that was open a long time,” Roina said. “We can’t control that change. It’s inevitable.”
The best solution, he said, is for someone to rent a space – the current location will be available, apparently, but at a higher price – and then rent private boxes to local residents. But the Postal Service would require them to have a window to make sales, handle packages and other duties.
“But we haven’t had anyone step up to do that,” Roina said.
If no one does, there are three possibilities:
- Neighborhoods can set up group mailboxes, usually 12-16 boxes with larger sections for packages. There is one such neighborhood box on Bernard Street on the north side of Seal Rock;
- Rent a Post Office box in Waldport, where there more than 100 available;
- Or, see if an individual mailbox can be set up outside or near your house or business. But Roina said that option is generally not available because of narrow streets and the Postal Service’s contracts with carriers that discourage adding individual stops.
To establish a group or neighborhood mailbox, Roina said, people will have to talk to their neighbors, buy a group box ($1,000 to $1,500), build a concrete pad and then collect money from people who use them.
“We’ll help you as much as you can,” Roina said.
Adam Denlinger, general manager of the Seal Rock Water District where the meeting was held, said the district is interested in organizing a group box near district headquarters and would work with neighbors to set one up — and possibly elsewhere around the community.
Roina said if neighbors couldn’t work out a group box plan for their neighborhood on their own, his office would take names of interested people and see where the boxes might be located. But, he said, someone has to take responsibility for buying and installing the group box and then collecting money to cover its cost.
Such boxes are common in suburban areas with higher density developments, and work well there. They are less common in rural communities used to a Post Office, a contract office, or rural route carriers.
Questions from an audience made up mostly of older, longtime residents focused on why the Postal Service was moving away from contracted, official Post Office boxes, or how they can make the transition to neighborhood service.
One resident, Larry Silverthorn, said he was trying to find someone to rent the current Post Office space and its boxes and asked others if they would pay more than $64 a year to keep the central location.
“I’ll pay 3-4 times that to stay there,” Silverthorn said. “I’ll do anything I can … as long as someone steps up to do that.”
But only 4-5 people raised their hand indicating they’d be willing to pay more.
Roina said people can email him with questions, concerns or to step up to buy and erect a neighborhood mail box. His email address is 97394WaldportOR@usps.gov
One person asked why the Postal Service doesn’t build an official Post Office in Seal Rock — there are 1,200 residents in the 97376 Zip code — like there are in Tidewater, Eddyville and Yachats.
“Dollars and cents,” Roina said. “That’s the best way to answer that.”
