People turned to ordering more items online during the pandemic, and communities in Colorado swelled as urban dwellers moved in, sometimes eclipsing the number of available boxes and further straining the postal system. And the Postal Service has struggled to retain employees, with Boxrud saying it hasn’t been immune from the effects of the pandemic and a labor shortage. Government Accountability Office has included the USPS on a “high-risk” list since 2009 because of its “unsustainable and deteriorating” financial condition. The beleaguered Postal Service has lost more than $90 billion since 2007, due to a decrease in its most profitable product - first-class mail - and a requirement that the self-funded agency prepay retirees’ health care costs. Residents in Colorado mountain towns and rural areas where home delivery is scarce have long complained of lengthy wait times and unreliable service from USPS. ‘You live in town?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Do you have problems with the post office?’ Let me tell you!’” “It can’t get much worse” 1 thing,” said Coleman, who moved to the Chaffee County town in 2020. So far, little has changed - leaving some residents with a feeling that they’re being “held hostage,” with no choice but to pay or stop receiving mail. They’ve gone to the local paper, firing off an op-ed branding the post office service a “disaster.” They’ve hunted down USPS employees and contacted local and state officials. Residents believe the annual fees are unfair and an added insult considering their long-running complaints about poor service and chronic understaffing at the office. Local post office looking to hire amid long lines to pick up packages. They don’t get mail delivered to their homes, don’t have cluster boxes, and don’t get the no-fee post office boxes that the USPS advertises. In Buena Vista - an Arkansas River town popular with tourists and outdoor enthusiasts - residents have no choice but to pay for a post office box. “I just got my bill for the coming year,” resident Bill Coleman posted on Facebook, “almost fell out of my chair.” The latest affront came earlier this year when residents learned their annual rates would be nearly doubled - to $134 for the smallest box. “A joke.” “TERRIBLE.” “Insane!!!” residents have fumed in a local Facebook group documenting six years of complaints from its 287 members.īut the real rub is the cost: Buena Vista residents have for decades paid for post office boxes, while those living just outside town limits get mail delivered to their home for free. Mail goes to the wrong post office box, or is inexplicably returned to the sender. Residents complain that prescriptions are lost.
(Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)īUENA VISTA - Even in these politically divided times, one topic has united this 3,000-person town in Colorado’s high country: frustration with the local U.S. Mail boxes across the street from the local post office on June 7 in Buena Vista.