Help save the Taos Ski Valley post office

The United States Postal Service is in the process of closing the Taos Ski Valley Post Office. The residents and businesses don’t know why. The couple who run it currently are giving up their contract as of the end of December.

In the meantime, the Taos postmaster wants all PO boxes in the ski valley moved to mile marker 7 on Route 150, which is 7 miles down the road from Taos Ski Valley and out of its jurisdiction. There is no building there, no provisions for packages, no mention of snow removal, no mail or packages being sent out. It’s basically in the middle of nowhere with no security.

At our last Village Council Meeting, held on Tuesday (Sept. 28), it was suggested that the boxes be moved to our future village offices in the parking lot at mile marker 13. All the problems still exist, but

now they’ll be closer. It was unanimously voted upon as the lesser of two evils.

It is also our understanding that PO Box numbers will no longer be valid. We will have to change our addresses to street addresses (we don’t know if these are real addresses or county emergency addresses). We don’t know why we have to change.

The Taos Ski Valley Corporation has volunteered to keep the Post Office in their tent building rent free for the duration. We can find someone to take over the post office duties, no problem. Yet, the postmaster won’t hear of it for some reason we don’t know.

Many tourists mail their skis to our post office prior to their ski vacations, and the post office mails them back. This obviously isn’t going to happen.

We are trying to set up a town hall meeting here in the ski valley to meet with the postmaster and find out what’s going on. This issue came out of the blue, and the community is just finding out about it.

Please don’t let the Postal Service take our post office away.

Kathy Bennett has lived full time in Taos Ski Valley for 30 years.