Sign the Petition to Save Montecito Country Mart Post Office

News that the USPS outlet at the Montecito Country Mart (MCM) will close in four months, slated for July. Miffed about the rationale to close its doors, the team at the MCM has been advocating for support. MCM writes:

Attention Montecito residents! We need your help to save the Montecito Country Mart Post Office. As many of you know, tucked inside the Montecito Country Mart is one of the neighborhood’s most useful institutions: our local post office. Now, like many contract postal counters across the country, it faces possible closure as USPS shifts services to larger outposts – often leaving communities with longer drives, reduced hours, and wait times that can stretch well past an hour. For many neighbors – especially elderly and mobility-limited residents – this small counter makes everyday errands far simpler. If you’d like to help keep Montecito’s post office right where it belongs, please consider adding your name to the petition.

We do fondly recall that – with the sad 2021 closure of stationery store called Read’n’Post at that location – the MCM helped preserve the in-store post office there, retaining the experienced Read’n’Post employee, John Devereaux to work in the current MCM post office. [See my 2021 MJ coverage here]

We love our quaint little nook, where we buy stamps, pens, cards, mail holiday cards and packages, and they even have complimentary packing tape and a desk to properly wrap our goodies for mailing. 

The MCM set up an online petition where locals can weigh in and make their opinion known, hopefully with the result that our village P.O. remains the postal lifeline that it is. The petition reads:

“USPS has informed the Montecito Country Mart that our Post Office will close without providing a clear operational or financial justification. The Montecito Country Mart Post Office has served the community continuously for over 40 years. It serves elderly residents and individuals with limited mobility who rely on convenient, nearby access to postal services. It supports local small businesses that depend on frequent and reliable mailing, shipping, and postal transactions. It allows customers to do multiple errands on foot. The nearest alternative USPS locations are less convenient and, for many residents and shopkeepers of the Lower Village, impractical. Their hours are shorter and are not open on weekends. The presence of essential services serves as a meaningful counterbalance to the nationwide trend toward online shopping and e-commerce, which has hollowed out many traditional retail districts preserving a walkable, economically resilient, and socially connected community. Terminating this contract will put increased demand on other post offices, increasing wait times with an already understaffed USPS and result in more traffic generally. Our employees and operations are paid for by us, reducing USPS’ labor and operating costs. Our request is that you engage with the community and operator to explore reasonable alternatives that would allow the Post Office to remain open and operational. We, the undersigned residents, business owners, and members of the Montecito community, respectfully petition the United States Postal Service to reconsider its decision to terminate the Montecito Country Mart Post Office,
scheduled for closure in approximately four months.”

411: Petition Link: https://tinyurl.com/MCM-USPS

Email: [email protected]