For the past two decades, the Huntley post office has remained quiet while the community has transformed itself from a small farming town to a robust, fast-growing urban suburb whose population has soared from about 3,000 to more than 25,000.
Rapid growth frequently leaves some parts of a community behind. The Huntley post office has struggled in the last few years, with resources and facilities steadily falling behind the demand for postal and package services by a rapidly growing population. Huntley and area postal officials would like to build a bigger building, and consolidate all of its incoming and outgoing postal services and activities into one facility. Everyone in Huntley, from customers to Liesz, agrees.
Huntley’s present 25,000+ population has the Post Office running every which way to meet the increasing demands of a growing community with little hope expansion. (Photo by Chris LaPelusa/Sun Day)
Unfortunately, it’s not likely to happen anytime soon.
A couple of generations ago, the post office advertised itself as a “nothing can stop us” organization. “Nothing, absolutely nothing, will keep your postman and women from meeting their appointed rounds of delivery,” so the mantra went. The slogan referred to bad weather and angry dogs.
Today, the common, but not publicly expressed theme is “We don’t have funds for expansion, and you have to make do with what you’ve got.”
The USPS is a federal agency. Facility improvements in any community must be approved by postal officials in Washington D.C., or Connecticut.
Despite this daunting environment, Huntley postal officials have tried hard to better their lot.
First, about seven years ago, the local postal staff was severely cramped and crowded at 11013 N. Woodstock Street near the town square in downtown Huntley. They moved the truck-dominated delivery service to the Huntley Carrier Annex, a commercial complex on Wolf Lane a block west of Route 47 near Oak Crest Drive, which is a short extension of Algonquin Road.
“We did this by necessity, not because it was a desirable move,” said Suhr. “It did relieve some of the crowding in town, but it was just intended to be a stop-gap move.”
Up until that time, mail carriers delivered the mail in their personal vehicles. When they purchased customized USPS trucks, they had no room for them at the Woodstock location.
The annex includes about 7,500 square feet where incoming mail is sorted and picked up by delivery drivers and taken on to 29 routes in Huntley and Gilberts. The retail store near downtown has nearly 2,000 square feet. There, customers can obtain letter and package services and rent post office boxes. Unlike almost all post offices in the area, there is no off-street parking at the retail facility, and customers can only park on Woodstock itself or on First or Second Streets nearby. There are about 40 carriers and substitutes, and clerks employed in the Huntley postal operation today at both locations.
Meanwhile, the village and a local construction company stepped into the issue to add some community-wide dialog to the matter. According to Village Manager David Johnson, the village approached local postal officials as early as the late 1990s and offered support in the search for a site. When the village hall complex was built in 2005, the village offered the vacant land on the west side of the new village hall as a site for a postal complex.
“We offered them some land if they could get funding for a new facility,” Johnson said. “We’ve been working on this for many years, while we were planning our own relocation to our present complex on Ruth Road and Main Street. It’s still at the top of our wish list. We hoped that adding a postal facility would enhance a municipal complex, with the library across the street.”
Ken Bakley, owner of Bakley Construction in Huntley, said he, too, got into the act.
“We were contacted by the postmaster and we talked about a possible site on the east side of Route 47 close to Reed Road. The post office told us they were looking for four-plus acres that would accommodate some off-street parking as well as a building. We talked about financial arrangements without reaching an agreement. This was several years ago, and I haven’t heard anything more about it since.”
Suhr, who has worked at the Huntley post office for about 25 years, said, “We also looked at another site at one time. It was a purchase or lease of the former Wisted grocery store building at Kenneth Street and Route 47.”
Again, nothing solid came out of the conversations. This Wisted site has a 21-space parking lot across Kenneth to the south, which she said is owned by the Wisted building property owner. Also explored were locations in one of Huntley’s industrial parks along Kreutzer Road.
“We put all of this together and we went to postal facility authorities in Connecticut,” said Strissel. “We hit a big wall. We were told there was no funding for expansion of local facilities. We were told that our business volume didn’t qualify us for financial support. They analyzed our records and transaction numbers at various times during the day. They agreed that we had a big peak period in December, but they said we didn’t have peak periods at any other time of the year. The post office overall is a huge federal bureaucracy, and they tend to look at the big picture, they are happy if mail gets delivered promptly. That’s what we do.”
Suhr, who plans to retire at the end of this year, says the clerks on Woodstock Street sometimes hear complaints from customers about the long lines and lack of parking. But a lot of folks tell us they appreciate how well we do despite our limited resources,” she said.
“We have obvious needs, Suhr said. “We have no off-street parking at our retail facility, we have only two windows to service customers and we need three, and we have separate facilities that need to be consolidated. When we hold mail for vacationers and absent customers, we do it at the annex, and then we have to return it to the retail facility later. This has resulted in a lot of confusion and extra work. Huntley is one of the fastest-growing communities in the area, and the more time passes, the more acute our inadequate space problems get. We have one dock for mail receipt from the USPS, UPS, and FedEx, she added. We need five.”
“I’ve been here six weeks, and I’m surprised at how well we do with our limited space,” said Liesz.
Finally, we have Dorie Rasmusen. She adds a bit of good humor to all of this. She lives immediately north of the present retail facility on Woodstock Avenue. Her large driveway abuts the post office’s driveway, and sometimes customers mistake her driveway for a parking lot for the post office.
“When I worked, it was a problem sometimes because I couldn’t get out of my driveway. But I talked to Mayor (Charles) Sass, and he got the village to put up road repair cones and barricades to keep parkers out. That helped a lot,” she said.
Ironically, Rasmusen says she would like the post office to stay right where it is.
“I can’t imagine it being anywhere else, It’s so close and the folks that work there are so nice and efficient,” said Rasmusen.
Regarding parking, village engineer Tim Farrell told the Sun Day last week that public parking will be reopened on the east side of Woodstock Street north of Coral Street later this fall, when the town square streetscape project is finished.
The bottom line? Huntley’s positive performance in spite of space limits gets them a pat on the back from higher-ups, but no money for expansion.
