The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

Neighborhood postal boxes are springing up all over town. photo by Tom Chace

Cooperation between the City of Sisters and the U.S. Postal Service will mean a savings in both time and money for many area residents.

The city gave the go-ahead a few weeks ago to place clustered centralized mail boxes in several subdivisions, eliminating the need for those neighborhood residents to pay for a post office box at the central post office.

"So far, we have three new areas we'll be serving by contract carrier route," said Pat Green, Sisters' Postmaster. "Buck Run, Coyote Springs, the new Larch Street apartments, and the Barclay Lane area are the newest."

The post office also needed the extra private boxes. It was out of room at the downtown building and had customers waiting to rent a new box. About 300 new mailboxes have been installed around Sisters.

Neil Thompson, former head of the City of Sisters' planning department, said that what is happening today actually began in the late 1990s when it was realized the post office was running out of available postal boxes.

"We made it a requirement of all new developments that space for post office boxes be made available," he said.

A street or house number address will be used to identify the box holder. Similar street addresses and comparable mail boxes are also in use at The Pines of Sisters, the gated adult community at the intersection of Brooks Camp and McKinney Butte Roads. Clustered boxes have been in use for two years in Tollgate.

"This will ease the demand on our downtown postal boxes in the main post office," Green said, "but we still have about 50 on the waiting list. This area is growing so fast we just don't have the post office boxes for all who want them."

Downtown businesses will continue to need a box in the post office; the city currently does not permit grouped boxes within the business district. The U.S. Postal Service does not make deliveries in Sisters.

Black Butte Ranch will still have its own system with residents there using an assigned box number and not their street address.

The new neighborhood boxes will be serviced by a contract driver. No post office personnel nor staff will be responsible for delivering to the new locations.

"All of our mail deliveries, outside the post office boxes within our own building themselves, are handled by contract drivers. The only staff we have is right here in the post office," Green said.

These new style boxes not only have a keyed box for letter and magazine sized mail, but two additional, large drawers or cupboards near the bottom of the rack where parcels can be placed.

A key to open the parcel locker is then placed in the individual's mailbox with instructions as to how to retrieve the oversized box or parcel.

There is also a slot for outgoing mail in each bank of private boxes. Keys are issued by the post office without charge.

Each patron needs to register at the downtown Sisters Post Office to get a set of keys.