FISH CAMP – The residents of Fish Camp and Wawona are relieved and delighted to learn that their local post office will remain open, though with reduced hours.
At a meeting at the Tenaya Lodge on Tuesday, Oct. 16, more than a dozen attendees were shown the results of the survey mailed in September to those living in zip code 93623.With 90 percent of those responding to the survey voting for the option “Realignment of Hours,” U.S. Postal Service representative Richard Garcia announced that the Fish Camp facility would remain open with retail hours from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, and will retain its 2-hour package pick-up on Saturdays from 8:15 to 10:15 a.m. Access to delivery receptacles will continue to be available 24/7.
“I’m ecstatic!” says Jackie Brown, postmaster at Fish Camp. “My concern is that the community is served.”
About a year-and-a-half ago, Fish Camp residents received notices from the U.S. Postal Service that their post office might be closed.
“They said they were going to do a study,” Brown said. “So that’s been hanging over our heads all this time.”
Brown says that no one she has talked to is upset about the reduced hours, they’re all just happy to have their post office in “downtown Fish Camp.”
“There are some large businesses in the area. The Tenaya Lodge is our biggest customer,” says Brown. “They would have to ship all their mail and packages to Oakhurst. And being the busiest entrance to Yosemite, we serve a lot of visitors too.”
The Postal Service has been faced with the challenge of designing a new strategy to keep the nation’s smallest post offices open for business, while implementing cost-saving measures to assure financial stability. Reducing hours in some locations is allowing them to achieve this goal.
“Meeting the needs of postal customers is, and will always be, a top priority. We continue to balance that by better aligning service options with customer demand and reducing the cost to serve,” said Postmaster General and CEO Patrick R. Donahoe in a May press release.
“We don’t want to lose the footprint and identity of our communities,” said Garcia at the Oct. 16 meeting with residents. “I think this is a good solution for everyone.”
The decision will become official within one week of the Oct. 16 meeting, and notice of the decision will be posted in the lobby at the Fish Camp post office. The changes will be implemented 30 days after the decision is posted.
