Sisters Post Office makes changes

They took away the "Sisters Mail Only" slot.

An efficiency expert in the regional postal center at Eugene decided "it would work better if all our local mail went to Bend before being brought back to Sisters for local distribution," said temporary postmaster, Pat Green, who refers to herself as "the officer in charge."

"And, it is possible they might be right," she said. "We'll have to wait and see."

Many times, she said, there was "so much local mail and not enough hands to sort it" that it waited an extra day for delivery here.

"Now, local mail goes out with the rest, is sorted by our delivery routes overnight in Bend, and returned to us the next morning. It then goes directly to the route person already sorted," she said.

"One of the noticeable advantages will affect Tollgate," Green said. "We should be able to get the mail up there around noon, about three hours earlier than now. Other areas will still get their mail about the same time as before."

Black Butte Ranch and Camp Sherman have their own substations and sort, deliver and forward their own mail.

Green, who has been the temporary "officer in charge" here for about a year, said that Sisters will have its new, permanent postmistress by July.

"Julie Pilcher from Batavia, Illinois, will be moving here to take over," Green said. "I'll be going back to my original job as postmaster in Culver, a small branch just south of Madras near Lake Billy Chinook.

"I asked for the permanent job here, as I do like the people and love this area," she said, "but the higher-ups ruled otherwise."

Asked about the frequent delays in mail that's forwarded from here she said, "All mail to be forwarded from Sisters is marked here and goes out the same day. Eugene is where the bottleneck is, if there is one. They apply the new address sticker. We have no control over that."

One delay-making hassle rests squarely on the shoulders of the public.

"Our big hang-up here, and where we could use some help from our customers," Green said, "is with the undeliverable mail that mainly is addressed to local businesses.

"We get about this much each day," she said holding her hands a foot apart, "and we just don't have the time to look up all those postal box numbers. Sometimes we can do that when it's a parcel, but with letter mail, we just have to return it. It would really help us if those in our Sisters area would call a business and ask for their mailing address before dropping that letter or bill payment in the outgoing mail box."

Because Sisters has so many retired people who travel or are gone in the winter, "we have over 100 new addresses each month that need forwarding," Green added.

"We'll just have to wait and see what the effect of our closing the 'local mail only' slot will be here. If it doesn't work, we'll try to get that 'efficiency person' in Eugene to reverse his or her decision," she said.