Published: November 15, 2008 06:56 pm            

Bluewell-area residents seek new post office

BLUEWELL — Going to the post office is a regular chore, but it’s not one that should take two hours, Bluewell residents are saying.

In late October the U.S. Post Office in Bluewell closed after federal investigators started checking for alleged “financial irregularities.” A representative of the USPS said then that the Bluewell station’s customers could use the post office on Cumberland Road in Bluefield.

Such an arrangement has not worked for elderly residents who do not have a car, said Skip Crane, coordinator of the Bluewell Neighborhood Watch.

“I go to the (Bluefield) post office,” Crane said. “I have noticed as many as 10 people waiting for the bus to go back to Bluewell. The bus is not going to wait for them, so they have to wait for the next bus. It’s taking them two hours just to go to the post office and back.”

Bluewell’s small businesses depend on having a local post office because they cannot spare a person to drive to Bluefield for the daily mail. Crane, who runs a telephone answering service, said he timed the round trip from Bluewell to Bluefield, and found that it took 30 minutes.

“I’ve been doing business at this post office, and there are people here on a fixed income. It concerns me that these people have to spend extra money and their time to go to the post office,” Crane said.

Local business owners are seeing their customers going to Bluefield to pay bills and get their mail.

“Well, it’s that so many of them do not drive and they either have to get a ride or catch the bus,” said Linda Hurst, who owns a Bluewell hardware store. “Several of them pay bills with money orders, and they have to purchase those in Bluefield.”

Sending a person to the post office in Bluefield is not always an option, he added.

“I have to hire somebody just to be here to run this answering service just so I can run to the post office,” Crane said. “All of these businesses are small or just one person working. There’s a lot of little mom and pops out here. It used to be that people would go to your window, see a sign that says ‘Gone to the Post Office.’ They knew you’d be back in five minutes. You can’t do that now. What customer’s going to sit and wait on you? You can’t expect them to.”

Crane said that approximately 5,000 people live in the Bluewell area; this includes communities such as Montcalm and Brushfork. Small communities such as McComas and Rock have post offices.

The short-term goal is to get the Bluewell post office reopened, Crane said. The long term goal is to get Bluewell its own full-service post office and its own zip code.

Petitions have been placed in Bluewell area businesses, he said. The neighborhood watch is also seeking an attorney willing to offer advice about presenting the petitions correctly and getting them to the right authorities.

Crane can be contacted at (304) 589-0250.

        

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