Post Office Petition

Please sign the petition at the Ripton Store or outside the Town Offices which urges officials to keep our Post Office open. The text is below:

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We, the undersigned citizens of the town of Ripton, Vermont, respectfully object to the closing of our Contract Post Office. We received official notice in our mail boxes about the closing at approximately 4:00 p.m. on June 26, 2008 that mail will no longer be delivered to our office as of 10:00 a.m. June 27, 2008. In the absence of time to call a meeting to organize our actions, we submit this petition to express our concerns and why we believe our office should remain.

The Ripton Post Office has been in existence since the mid 1800’s. Since the population of Ripton has been steadily increasing since 1970, there is always a waiting list for mail boxes from new residents. For a rural town, our local post office provides an important sense of community; it provides a place for townspeople to casually meet and a place for postings of local services, events and public meetings. We have three schools, including the Middlebury College Breadloaf School, and several service businesses and manufacturing businesses which rely upon prompt mail delivery and outgoing services. Furthermore, we feel that maintaining our small post office in the town center is more convenient and efficient over the alternative of rural delivery over 30 miles of mountainous roads; and to require over 200 households to drive 4 miles down a mountainous road to retrieve mail creates an unnecessary hazard and expense for our citizens.


Therefore, we request the opportunity to work with the United State Postal Service to preserve our right to maintain this longstanding tradition in our town. Thank you.