By Liz Bowen

USPS sent out an article last week that RURAL America was up in arms about proposed closures of Post Offices and said it will not close those Post Offices.  Whew, I breathed a sign of relief — at least until after the Nov. elections.

Then on Friday, May 11, 2012, many hundreds of Post Masters received phone calls saying their jobs were about to be terminated and the hours of retail service at these RURAL Post Offices will be greatly reduced.

Yep, that is right.

In its wisdom to seek a balanced budget, the USPS authorities are cutting out the office of Post Master in these rural Post Offices. Yet, post office employees and contract people will still be hired to replace the Post Masters. It all does not add up to much savings, but the P.O. Boxes will remain in Post Offices as will the zip code.

A significant number of Post Offices in Siskiyou County are affected. But luckily for Forks of Salmon, it will remain open with a live employee, Jesse, for 6 hours as it has been.

Others are being drastically cut in retail hours — most by half. Scott Bar will be cut from 8 hrs to only 2 hrs.

Pacific Crest Trail hikers may find it more difficult to obtain packages left for them as the Seiad Valley Post Office has been reduced from 8 hrs to 4.

Others, I noticed, that were reduced to 4 hours were Gazelle, Greenview, MacDoel and my own Callahan.

I will truly miss our wonderful Post Master Lisa. She is from a long line of Post Masters in her family going back at least 4 generations.

Grenada and Hornbrook are being cut back from 8 hrs to 6.

I may have missed a few Post Offices, so check out the link to find your Post Office. It is listed by state and, literally, thousands of Post Offices across the nation are finding their retail hours reduced.

Pretty frustrating it is, because the two officials from Sacramento that held meetings regarding proposed Post Office closures in Callahan and Forks of Salmon last October, did not follow the meeting process correctly. We, the citizens, caught them in several lies and I have the Forks of Salmon meeting on video. We also have written statements regarding the lies and inconsistencies at the Callahan meeting.

http://about.usps.com/news/electronic-press-kits/our-future-network/assets/pdf/postplan-affected-post-offices-120509.pdf