In mid-January the Livermore Post Office will change to reduced hours, as a result of a USPS drive to reduce the cost of rural mail delivery. The announcement of reduced hours came at a Dec. 6 community meeting at Livermore Community Church.
The current change is a part of the USPS POST plan to cut rural delivery costs, as the Postal Service has experienced a loss of $25 billion since 2007, mostly attributed to the burgeoning growth of email and private package delivery services.
To begin the study of possible changes in Livermore, the Postal Service sent 1,001 surveys to local residents asking them to select their preference among four choices. These choices included reduced hours, moving to a private business location or two choices whereby another post office would provide services and box locations.
Local residents returned 445 surveys (a very large percentage), with 92 percent indicating they would prefer reduced hours. The public meeting was hosted by Robert Martin of the Longmont office and attracted almost 50 residents. At the meeting, Martin announced that the decision was to reduce hours at Livermore. The new hours will probably be 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m, with a hour off for lunch. Saturday hours will remain unchanged. Curbside rural delivery will not be affected, nor will access to mail boxes.
The POST plan is targeting some 31,000 rural facilities. Martin said the post office in Red Feather Lakes will also soon come under scrutiny.
The Livermore Post Office has weathered many changes since first being located next door to the Livermore Hotel on the banks of the North Fork of the Poudre. The year was 1874, when it was housed in a hardware/grocery store that is still visible alongside the Red Feather Lakes Road just 2 miles west of its current location near The Forks at the junction with Hwy. 287. At other times the office was located at The Forks Hotel and in various private homes near there.