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Photograph by Paul Myers
New Saratoga Postmaster Curtis Jewell says he's added staff members to avoid any missed delivery days in the future. In terms of leadership, Jewell intends to give Saratogans "what they deserve."
New postmaster aims to please the hard-to-please in Saratoga
By Oakley Brooks
Postmaster Curtis Jewell began running the Postal Service's Saratoga operation in December. A native of Anacortes, Wash., and a postal worker since 1975, Jewell moved to Northern California when he tranferred to the Santa Cruz branch in 1988.
On June 15, he was officially inducted into the Saratoga Postmaster position with a small ceremony at the Allendale Avenue headquarters. He spoke to the Saratoga News just before the ceremony and the festivities he said, half-jokingly, he could "do without.
"To me," said Jewell, "we should just be getting on with business, as usual."
Saratoga News: What brings you to Saratoga? What drew you to the job?
Curtis Jewell: This is really a nice community for one thing. This office has a lot of potential. It's the kind of office that could be turned into a showcase for the community.
SN: Showcase--what do you mean by that?
Jewell: Well, as far as being the prime example of an exemplary post office. I think we can make it shine.
SN: The town's had its fair share of glitches in terms of delivery in the last year. Is this something that you've had to deal with right away?
Jewell: I've already dealt with it. One of the first things I did was hire about 10 new employees. So we're hired up to our complement, or hiring cap. I will continue to hire up to that cap. We've lost a couple people to attrition in the last month. As we do that, I'll continue to hire. I've got one I'm hiring right now. I've just requested another hiring from San Jose. The key is to stay at that hiring cap. That was the problem before, we were short-staffed. Carriers were working on their days off; they never got a day off. Any time we had a vacancy or routes we couldn't cover, carriers were splitting it up. They'd do their route and then have to split up another route. That's why mail was being delivered as late as 7 or 8 o'clock at night.
SN: Saratogans expect a lot out of their civic leaders--are you used to that?
Jewell: I'm aware of that and I intend to give them what they deserve. It's a little different here. I've been at other offices where the expectation wasn't quite as high. Here in Saratoga, when [people] say they're going to write to a congressman, they know him on a first name basis and they're personal friends.
SN: Have you had much contact with the citizens yet?
Jewell: Oh yeah. I won't name names, but I got a letter here a couple of weeks ago from one of the customers. This fellow had written a lot of nasty letters. Very loud and aggressive--he was very unpleased. I got a letter two weeks ago from the same gentleman saying how he couldn't believe the changes that have been made and "Keep up the good work."
I'm also involved with Saratoga area senior center. They've started this program called SHARP (Senior Health Awareness Registry Program). We have our own program that's part of SHARP; it's called Carrier Alert. A customer will request to be watched by the letter carrier. If the mail piles up for a day or so, then we notify the Sheriff's Department. Traditionally, carriers have done that, anyway. But this kind of formalizes it.
SN: The postal service as a whole is going through some rough times right now. (The service stands to lose $2 billion to $3 billion this year.) How does that translate locally and how do you cope with it?
Jewell: What it means is that I have to be very cautious about the money we spend. The ceremony is on a shoestring today; normally, you could go all out. We're conscious about energy conservation. Of course, employee hours is a major consideration and we've managed to cut back. From December until now, we're about 5.5 percent under in hours, compared to the same period last year.
We're doing everything we can to run this office as efficiently as possible.
Every time gas goes up it affects us, the energy crisis affects us. Of course, e-commerce and email--that kind of business takes away from the postal service.
SN: There's a sort of old-school element in Saratoga--people who have been here for a long time. They're used to using the post office. Is that something that keeps the office vital here?
Jewell: I think it's always going to be vital here, absolutely. Once we get past some of these budgetary crunches, I'd like to put another person down at the Village station. I think it would serve the community well to have another person there. Traditionally, Saratoga does a lot of business. So, yeah, the service will always be vital here.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
