From the standpoint of the U.S. Postal Service, the consolidation of the Keene and the Keene Valley post offices presented an unexpected grand experiment, to wit, can they get away with making it permanent, and if so, you can be sure that other consolidations will soon be in the making as the post office is desperate to find ways of saving labor and overhead costs. Awareness that changes were not completely on the up and up came with the realization that the post office had been given notice that their lease would not be renewed long before the public and local public officials were notified, leaving little chance to find an alternative space to keep the post office in Keene Valley.

Postal Service officials began by using the word eviction, when in fact their landlords did not evict them; their lease was not renewed. Then they delayed notifying the community to the point if even a space was found there would have been no time to set it up. Even so, many are annoyed with the property owners for not giving the post office and town a year’s notice so that a more deliberate approach could have been taken.

The consolidation brings with it certain problems aside from the added distance; parking at the Keene post office is minimal and its location on a curve near the edge of town where traffic is often still in the process of slowing and sightlines are poor, raises significant safety problems. Indeed, exiting the P.O. requires backing into oncoming traffic, an illegal and very dangerous maneuver, especially when the cars of other patrons block one’s sightlines.

Many people in Keene Valley, some from the Neighborhood House, who used to walk to the post office, will have to drive or be transported to Keene. Those along parts of Route 73, Market and Adirondack streets with sidewalks cannot seek home delivery as their homes and businesses do not meet postal delivery standards; i.e. there is no place for a mailbox to be properly installed. Those who live up in the woods will have to either drive to Keene or petition to collect mail from cluster boxes located along postal delivery routes. Further, adding insult to injury, the Postal Service removed the hamlet’s only mail box, thus one cannot even mail a letter without going to Keene.

Then there is the social impact. The Community Trust had gone to a great deal of expense and donated labor to put in a parking lot to provide adequate off the street parking to service the Keene Valley post office and Valley Grocery, a lot that now may no longer be needed. The Valley Grocery’s business will no doubt suffer to some degree as many combined going to the post office with picking up groceries, and an important social gathering place will be lost, a place where public notices were posted and chance encounters helped foster local news, social events and business transactions.

“The post office in Keene isn’t big enough to serve the two towns,” said Community Trust member Louise Gregg. “How are people who don’t have cars supposed to get their mail? I think it is disgraceful that the post office didn’t let us know for a whole month.”

“Now I have to drive over 3,000 miles a year to get my mail. It is heart breaking,” said local business owner Martha Lee Owens.

“It has been hard to be at the center of all the controversy,” said Hilda Senecal, the former owner of the property. “People are passing on rumors that are not true. We have provided space for the post office for 64 years. It was time.”

“Are you saying, change happens?” I said.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“There is a need for a community meeting so people can hear from the Postal Service and they can hear from us, a meeting without a lot of shouting but where we can get some answers,” said Phyllis Buchanan. “The postmaster from Glens Falls said the Keene post office is only 4.2 miles away. 4.2 miles my foot! Where did they measure from?”

“You don’t want to know what I think,” said Brett Lawrence.

“There was talk several years ago about combining the post offices,” said Senecal. “The post office has been wanting to do this for a long time.”

“In all my nearly 60 years of driving I have had three traffic incidents, and two of them have been at the Keene post office, and that was before this merger,” said Keene resident Tom Both. “There is very limited parking and it will get worse.”

“People have discussed establishing one post office midway, putting up a building on the edge of Marcy Field near the parking lot for the Garden,” I said.

“That would require revisiting and modifying the town’s master plan, which would require APA approval. Not impossible but it would take time,” said Both, a former town supervisor.

“Maybe it should be located at the transfer station,” I said, “It would certainly make getting rid of junk mail easier.”

“That would be a first,” said Both.

For all those who are clamoring for reduced government and cuts in federal spending, consolidation of post offices is part of that price, as will be the consolidation of school districts, town and village governments, state and federal agencies, the raising of the age to receive Social Security benefits and the like. As it is happening in Keene Valley, the process will often not be in a deliberate and planned manner. We should all prepare for a lot more discomfort to come.