Ed Mann was driving south on Highway 1 for his daily commute when he saw his neighbor, Chetan Rose, walking down the road with his thumb up. With no means of transportation, Mr. Rose was hitchhiking to the Stinson Beach Post Office to obtain a money order so he could pay his rent.
The next day, Mr. Rose hitchhiked to Olema for his mail and then to Point Reyes Station for his medication. The trip took five hours, and in his mailbox were medical renewal papers with a 10-day deadline. He said they had already been sitting a few days in his box, which was moved from Bolinas to Olema last week after the Bolinas Post Office shut down.
“I’m one of the younger elders,” Mr. Rose said. “For some of the elder elders, it’s really a problem. I’m appalled at how quickly this happened.”
The elderly and those who can’t or don’t drive are the hardest hit by the transfer of mail services from Bolinas to Olema this month. But many others are frustrated with the sudden move.
Efforts have been focused on a temporary office in the Mesa Park parking lot, but Mark Lucanic, a board member for the Firehouse Community Park Agency, which manages the park, said the postal service does not think the site is workable due to the volume of mail handled in town. He said the service is hoping to expand home delivery and may revisit the idea of bringing the post office to the lot if the volume of mail can be reduced by street delivery.
A little over a year ago, the owner of the building that houses the post office and the neighboring, fire-damaged Waterhouse building, Gregg Welsh, terminated the postal service’s lease, alleging that the service knew of asbestos in the floortiles but had failed to properly remediate it. His lawyer, Patrick Morris, claimed the postal service had been aware of the issue since 1998 and tried to defraud Mr. Welsh in 2021 when it said it had addressed the issue and asked him to pay for half the cost, which totaled around $50,000. Mr. Morris said the lease stipulated that the postal service was solely responsible for the repairs, and he called the work “shoddy.”
After the lease ended last month, services continued for several days from the back of the building before the postal service set up temporary boxes in Olema. Now, a group led by Bolinas residents John Borg and Shari Dell is trying to find the next best steps.
“I feel a deep sense of betrayal from the federal government,” Bolinas resident Don Smith said at a community meeting last week. “You get mail. You send mail. It’s one of the oldest and most respected government services there ever was. Luckily, we have this really civically engaged community. We can’t depend on the federal government anymore—we have to save ourselves.”
The group launched a petition asking local, state and federally elected leaders to ensure the return of the post office to town, emphasizing the need for a transparent process with opportunity for public input. In 24 hours, the petition received over 625 signatures of support from the community—more than half of Bolinas’s full-time population. The petition now has over 1,200 signatures.
Mr. Borg is concerned that the longer the post office is not in Bolinas, the more likely it’s going to stay out. The group has connected with other organizations in rural communities that have lost their post offices and is exploring locations for a temporary office. With limited commercial property in Bolinas, finding a permanent location is a challenge, Mr. Borg said.
The group has also created a survey to gauge residents’ reliance on postal services and their ability to access the Olema Post Office. Of roughly 225 responses so far, 88 percent visit the post office at least three times a week, and 80 percent said it would be difficult to get to Olema. Forty percent said they could only travel to Olema once a week, and 59 percent said they rely on the post office to receive prescription
medications.
With the departure of the post office, some local businesses say they have seen less foot traffic.
Siriruk Nan, the manager of Don’s Liquor, said that mornings have been quieter than usual without the social scene that livened the building’s walkway less than a month ago.
While he was in Point Reyes getting his medicine, Mr. Rose said he encountered several of his neighbors making the same trip and stopping by the Palace Market to buy groceries. Samira Nassrah, the owner of the Bolinas Market, said she has noticed fewer people coming in to buy groceries, but she said that could be chalked up to a winter lull.
“[The Palace Market] is close to the post office, so maybe people [will] shop there more,” she said. “But who cares? We have everything you need to shop here in Bolinas. They can shop anywhere they want! I’m very upset about the post office moving.”