Meeting set on Harmony post office

Facility in creamery building closed after structure was deemed unsafe

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The U. S. Postal Service plans to mail letters this week to Harmony residents saying a community meeting on the future of the Harmony post office will be held at 6 p. m. May 22 at Rabobank, 1070 Main St. in Cambria.

The hamlet’s historic post office, opened in 1914, closed its doors April 4 after postal authorities ordered service suspended because the historic creamery building in which it’s housed is “structurally unsafe.”

The public meeting won’t be a formal hearing, according to Postal Service spokesman Rich Maher. Rather, he said, it is intended simply to gather community input.

Poll:

What should the U.S. Postal Service do with the Harmony Post Office?

It must be reopened!

Definitely keep it closed. What a waste of money.

It all depends on the cost - reopen if it doesn't take too much money.

Where is Harmony?

Your vote has been counted, thank you for voting.

“We want the community to be involved, understand what the circumstances are,” Maher said. “We want to know what their feelings are, what the service is like they’re getting now.”

Mail for residents who formerly picked up their mail at one of the office’s antique mailboxes now goes to a streetside metal box with individual locking slots.

Harmony is a settlement of fewer than two dozen residents along Highway 1, between Cambria and Cayucos.

Since 1914, the post office —which has little more than a bank-style window and 102 antique postal boxes in the Harmony Creamery building— had been a makeshift town hall and impromptu meeting place for the box-holders, 98 at last count, and anyone else wanting to buy a stamp, mail a letter or ask directions in the town.

—Kathe Tanner