MCKENZIE BRIDGE, Oregon (STPNS) -- BLUE RIVER: After surveying customers, hours at the Blue River Post Office will be reduced to six hours per day – Monday through Friday. 97% of respondents opted for the action, rather than closing the facility, moving the post office inside another business, or shifting operations to a nearby existing post office.

At a public meeting last Friday, Corvallis Postmaster Isaac Rudd talked about consolidation efforts resulting in the POST Plan that targeted 17,000 post offices for possible closure. Of that number, Blue River will remain open, along with 13,000 others.



Nationwide, however, Saturday home mail delivery will end on August 5th. Although officials have said packages will continue to be delivered on the weekends, a determination hasn’t yet been made if that will include parcel delivery along rural routes like those in the McKenzie Valley.

Rudd encouraged people to, “spend money in your post office.” One of the key determinants for a facility’s viability is the revenue it generates. He recalled visiting one small rural community where people wanted to retain an eight-hour day. Unfortunately, he had stopped by their post office prior to that meeting and learned the office had generated only $12 in an eight-hour day. That’s not the case with Blue River, where two-thirds of the office’s 400 post office boxes are rented out. However, he warned, under the POST program, a annual review will be conducted every February to determine if there has been a decline in “walk in revenue.”

During the meeting, people were polled on what hours of operation they preferred. The result was keeping the service window open from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., with a half-hour lunch break from 1 to 1:30 p.m. People with post offices boxes can expect their mail to be in them by 11:30 a.m., Rudd said.

Next week officials will hold a similar meeting to discuss operations of the Vida Post Office. It will be held at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, March 13th, at the Vida McKenzie Community Center on Thomson Lane.