Purchase Most of Your Postage Needs Here before Returning to Your Winter Homes; Keep Our Post Office Thriving

"The Big October Post Office Hearing about the Silver Lake Post Office" held at Koinonia Dining & Meeting Rooms a few years back. Pete Mairs is pictured above (second from the left) as the then-president of the SLI Board of Trustees.

Our Silver Lake, NY 14549 Post Office was reduced to a part time operation the following Spring after the October Postal Hearing. Although the vast reduction in hours was sad and in many cases inconvenient, it was the only way our PO was going to remain open. The decision, however, came with a caveat which was that the part time operation was dependent on our post office's ability to generate enough income to make its continued operation feasible. That means that its sales of products--press-on postage, package sending, packaging materials, stamped envelopes, etc.--must exceed its expenses.  (continued)

Expenses (or costs to stay in business) include building rent, utilities, employment costs, equipment costs, etc. It seemed clear at the time of the decision that residents could, in fact, play a significant role in keeping our post office alive as the current part time operation--buy whatever you need and whatever you can from our own Silver Lake Post Office. That's why every year we remind everyone to buy your Christmas postage and send your Christmas and birthday gifts through our Silver Lake Post Office. The only other way of decreasing the chances of another hearing would be for the Institute to provide the building and utilities for the postal service to use and that won't be considered any time soon. So in the meantime, buy Silver Lake U.S. Postage!

BACKGROUND

If you remember anything about these photos from several years back, you will probably recall the time we were "invited" to a Postal Hearing about whether or not our local SLI Post Office would continue or be closed. The smiles in the photo belie the real worry and concern we were having over this potential loss. The folks pictured above were merely information gatherers who took what they learned back to the head honchos, but the several big things that we learned that chilly October evening were (1) our post office could not continue as it has been. A full time post office was no longer an option. It was a financially-losing situation. So the real question became whether it could be viable as a part time operation or if that, too, was not financially sustainable. (2) Although we could no longer influence this particular decision being made sometime after the hearing information was passed along, if the post office were to try to make it on a part time basis, then we, in fact, could be a regular influence on attempting to avoid another hearing or even a simple shut down with enough notice to have a cluster of outdoor mailboxes set up in one or two locations within the Institute. We would lose our 14549 zip code. (3) The only way to keep our 14549 zip code with our "Silver Lake" designation was to agree to travel to the Perry NY post office where where a cluster of post office boxes would be marked "Silver Lake" and our 14549 zip would remain in tact.