Post Office prunes volunteers

Pictured: Elizabeth Tenney (far right) and volunteers planting and maintaining the landscaping at the Mammoth Post Office in past years. This year the Post Office will take beautification efforts in house./

With spring in the air, one of Mammoth Lakes’ annual volunteerism appears to have been weeded out. Earlier this month, Elizabeth Tenney, volunteer organizer of the Mammoth Lakes Post Office Beautification Project since its inception in 2007, learned from Postmaster Jim Epperly that volunteers’ services would not be needed this year.

In an April 15 email response to Tenney’s inquiry about this year’s PO Beautification Project, Postmaster Jim Epperly wrote, “At this time we do not need any more volunteer work. I would like to thank you for all the hard work done at this facility. The building is going to get painted this year, and the west side garden will be taken over by my landscaper this year.”

For Tenney, the PO Beautification Project was more than volunteer work. With the support of now-retired Mammoth Lakes Postmaster Gary Fultz, the Project was a full-on community effort to spruce up what had been dubbed the “Pluto of post offices,” often forgotten by regional USPS.

“My chief concern is that the flowers and trees around the building and in PO Park West are maintained and maintained well,” Tenney noted. “That was a monumental community effort to make the PO Beautification Project a reality.”

And it’s not only the regular PO volunteers who have been sidelined. According to Tenney, other groups also offered assistance over the years. Noon Rotary Club President Rick Phelps offered the club’s help as a service project last year, and the Rotarians were planning to pitch in this spring to repaint the planters, railings and parking lot bollards.

“If the Postmaster has enough money in his budget to maintain, without volunteer help, the flowers and trees that locals planted during 2007, that’s good news,” Tenney said, adding that having the PO take over the work definitely makes things easier for her as PO Project organizer, since she wouldn’t have to schedule/wrangle volunteer help.

“The spectacular results of the PO Beautification Project made the huge amount of community effort, time and expense absolutely worth it,” Tenney said.

“What an asset for our town now,” she continued, “and to think we got two mini-park areas for locals and visitors to enjoy as a bonus. May it stay forever beautiful at our Mammoth Lakes Post Office!”

Epperly told The Sheet this week he has the beautification money in his budget, as well as funding for the paint job.

Reminiscing a bit, Tenney pointed out that Mammoth locals are tough, resilient, self-reliant, adventurous and absolutely passionate, by and large, about keeping Mammoth’s four square-miles beautiful.

“They’re self-starters, whether organizing a music festival, building a running track, starting a farmers’ market or launching a beautification effort,” she said of local volunteers.

She went on to add that Mammoth locals are what made the PO Beautification Project possible, along with help from Fultz, who was grateful for community help in cleaning up and funding the beautification. Volunteers, she pointed out, have been a diverse group, made up of folks from all walks of life, and social and economic strata. “We’re accustomed to working with the many government agencies with jurisdictions here either as partners, or by commenting on CEQA and NEPA matters,” she commented. “We’re used to working with government. We do things together.”

Epperly didn’t take issue with locals’ previous assistance, but indicated it’s time things were done more by the book.

Epperly confirmed that the PO’s original landscape designer for the Beautification Project, Tracy Hauter, has contracted with the USPS to conduct the beautification around the building, and continue the maintenance.

“This is a government facility and anything handled on government land should be done through a contractor,” Epperly told The Sheet, emphasizing that his position involved liability concerns. He also pointed to previous irrigation and plumbing work that was done without the Post Office’s consent. Still, Epperly said he’s supportive of continuing the Post Office’s beautification program.

“It will still be here to be enjoyed by the public, and it will be properly maintained from sprinklers to weed pulling.”