Careywood post office faces closure

CAREYWOOD — Don Duhart has lived in Careywood for a decade and said he should have moved to the rural Bonner County town 20 years earlier.

Like many in the unincorporated community of 500, Duhart begins most days by visiting the town’s post office just off U.S. Highway 95. The Navy veteran who served two tours in Vietnam said he relies on his P.O. box at the office as a way to securely receive his medication and documents from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

“There’s about eight other veterans here that do the same thing,” Duhart said. “It’s also where we come to visit with friends and hear all the latest news.”

Lately the news has been about the post office itself, which is scheduled to close at the end of the month. For residents like Duhart, the closure is about more than just the old gray building where residents have gone to get their mail since 1933.

“If they close the post office, Careywood will be non-existent,” Duhart said. “The only other building with the town’s name on it is the volunteer fire station, where we vote. If we can vote here, why can’t we get our mail here, too?”

The United States Postal Service designated the post office at Careywood as a “community post office” — a postal unit operated by a citizen under contract with the federal agency. For 42 years the contract postmaster was Sharon Hoffman, who along with her husband, Ron, also owned the land and the post office building.

When Sharon fell ill, Ron took over as postmaster for a few years. But when his wife died last May, Ron began looking for someone to take over so he could retire.

“It was a fluke how I even looked into the post office,” said Carrie Bartelt, who moved to Careywood a few years ago to be closer to her sister. “A lady was asking Ron if he was looking for help running it. I had heard that conversation but didn’t think anything of it. A couple days later when I was coming in to get my mail I asked Ron if he was still looking for help because I was job hunting.”

Ron said he was, and at the end of May, Bartelt said she contacted the USPS about her interest in becoming the next postmaster. With no prior experience in postal work, she also began training with Ron.

“He had to pay me out of his pocket,” Bartelt said. “It was $10 a day. That was all he could afford.”

On July 29, Bartelt said she was informed that she could start working as the contract postmaster on Aug. 1. She accepted what was called an emergency contract, with no expiration date, and not only took over the role, but began making improvements to the post office as well.

“It was in bad shape,” Bartelt said. “It needed painting and the roof leaked. The way the old operators had it, it was kind of dark and they didn’t offer a lot of services and weren’t computerized.”

She added that she notified two USPS officials of her plans to renovate the building and started making improvements after the post office would close for business each evening.

USPS pays their contract postmasters once a month and Bartelt said she didn’t receive a paycheck for her work in August. She continued to work and maintain the post office throughout September and said she didn’t receive a paycheck for that month of work either.

“So finally in October I told them ‘You know I have to pay rent here to the owner of the building and the utilities besides my own bills and I have no paycheck,” Bartelt said. “Both Sharon and Ron were retired, so they both collected Social Security and their pay from the post office. I’m single and don’t have any help paying the bills — this is my income.”

When USPS reached out to Bartelt about the issue in the middle of October, she said they were going to pay her what the Hoffmans had made. Due to the additional overhead of having to pay rent on the building, that wouldn’t work for Bartelt and she said they eventually settled on a number somewhere in between.

“They also said they were going to give me a six-month contract,” Bartelt said. “So everything was fine and dandy and we were moving ahead.”

To help reduce some of her overhead, Bartelt sublet two-thirds of the building, which was turned into a small convenience store. She also said that during her tenure as contract postmaster, retail sales — customers purchasing stamps, postage and shipping boxes — rose 40 percent.  

However on Feb. 20, Bartelt was given notice that USPS was planning on closing the Careywood post office on March 31. She said she was instructed to put the notices in the P.O. boxes and was also given two notices to place in the lobby for the general public.

“But the post office was not going to notify the entire community,” Bartelt said. “They were just going to notify the people with boxes because their plan was to move the boxes to Athol, which is in a whole other zip code and a whole other county.”

 When residents like Marrion Banks were informed of the closure, they began doing everything possible to prevent it.

“It isn’t just closing a post office,” Banks said. “It’s urban America telling rural America ‘You don’t matter, we don’t care, just go away.’ I guess they just think we’re a bunch of dumb hicks who will swallow anything they say.”

Banks said the impact of the impending closure would hurt the community financially. She called USPS’s plan to relocate the more than 300 P.O. boxes to Athol a “tax on mail” because of the additional fuel expenses residents will have to pay.

“I’m still working,” Banks said. “But think of what that cost would mean to someone living here who is retired and on a fixed income.”

In addition to the financial burden, the resident of 24 years said the loss would be a deathblow to the tight-knit community she loves.

“The post office is Careywood; if they close it Careywood goes away,” Banks said. “Without it we will be lost.”

 In an email to the Hagadone News Network, USPS communications programs specialist Ernie Swanson said there are two reasons for the community post office’s closure. The first of which is an Idaho Transportation Department plan to widen U.S. Highway 95, “eliminating the building housing the contract post office.”

However, Bartelt said while doing her homework prior to putting in her initial bid for the contract postmaster position, she learned from ITD officials that the U.S. 95 project is still decades from getting under way.  

Swanson wrote that the second reason USPS has “elected to shutter” the post office was his department’s inability to “reach a tenable contract” with Bartelt.

When asked if she was ever in negotiations with USPS to renew her contract, Bartelt said that other than the notice of closure she was never contacted by the agency. She added that if she was given the chance to renegotiate, her proposal would have been substantially less since the store in the post office building has dramatically lowered her overhead.  

“The Postal Service apologizes for any inconvenience caused to our valued customers,” Swanson wrote in the conclusion of his email. “But are confident that the steps we have taken will result in a continuing high level of service.”

There are 343 signatures on a petition circulating to save the post office and Banks said they have also reached out to their local congressional delegation for assistance.

“Careywood is a community of people who work together to accomplish things,” Banks said. “This just proves it.”