Nevada post office to open 24 hours again

Steve Moyer/Daily Mail Mark Rogers, local box holder, gets his mail from his box in the outer lobby. "It'll be good that they're going to be open longer," Rogers said.

By Steve Moyer

Nevada Daily Mail

Nevada residents will soon be able to go to the post office and pick up their mail 24 hours a day. Starting May 28 the outer lobby of the Nevada Post Office will once again be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The outer lobby used to follow that schedule but vandalism and mail theft caused the district supervisor to decide to close it except when post office personnel were in the building.

Postmaster Randy Fellows said he had tried for a long time to get his previous supervisor to allow the 24 hour opening but to no avail but his present supervisor was willing to make the change. "I talked to my boss and he said try it. If things go all right we'll keep the lobby open but if there are more problems it could close again."

The Nevada Post Office used to rent out nearly all of its 800 lock boxes but since the outer lobby closed the number is around 700. Fellows said he feels the change could increase the use of post office boxes. "We used to have more boxes open when we were open 24 hours. There are a lot of people, truck drivers, shift workers at 3M, and others who find it inconvenient or nearly impossible to get the mail from their boxes with the shorter lobby hours so they don't rent one." Fellows asked patrons and community members to help in keeping the lobby open. "The only condition set by our district office was that if vandalism and mail theft starts again we will have to lock the facility when the last employees leave our office. Please help us to provide this additional service. I hope people will keep their eyes and ears open and let us know if there are problems so that we can serve our customers better."