Big Valley has no home mail delivery. Most of us have run across difficulties in not having a physical mailing address. Bank accounts, credit cards, mail-in rebates, and many social services require a physical address and do not provide for or accept, a separate mailing address (PO Box). After contacting the US Post Office concerning petitioning them for home delivery I was given the following information:
"To Whom It May Concern:
If you are interested in having a mail route established in your area,
please fill out this form and return it to the Bieber Post Office.
Establishment of a mail route requires at least one address per mile
serviced and enough addresses total to provide 3.5 hours work per day
for the route person.
These forms will be held of file until enough are collected to send to Postal headquarters.
Thank You,
Bieber Postmaster"
Included was a simple half page form for your name, physical address, PO box and a sketch of your location to be submitted to the US Postal Service as a "Request for Extension or Establishment of Delivery".
I calculated the following table to estimate your yearly cost of gas for driving to the Post Office. On the vertical axis look up your one-way driving distance to the Post Office. On the horizontal axis estimate the number of days per week that you drive to the Post Office. Where they meet is your annual cost for gas to drive to get your mail, assuming 20mpg and $3.50 per gallon of gas. If gas costs increase or your gas mileage is less your yearly cost would be higher.
YEARLY GAS COST OF DRIVING TO PO :
| Days Driven | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| Miles to P.O. |
||||||
| 1 | $18.20 | $36.40 | $44.60 | $62.80 | $80.80 | $99.00 |
  |
$36.40 | $72.80 | $109.20 | $145.60 | $182.00 | $218.40 |
| 3 | $54.60 | $109.20 | $163.80 | $218.40 | $273.00 | $327.60 |
| 5 | $91.00 | $182.00 | $273.00 | $364.00 | $455.00 | $546.00 |
| 7 | $127.40 | $127.40 | $382.20 | $509.60 | $637.00 | $764.40 |
| 10 | $182.00 | $364.00 | $546.00 | $728.00 | $910.00 | $1,092 |
| 15 | $273.00 | $546.00 | $819.00 | $1,092 | $1,365 | $1,638 |
Assume $3.50/gal gas and 20mpg
If mail delivery is established in your area, you would no longer be
entitled to a free PO Box (you can keep your PO box, but there will be
a fee). Also, you would be responsible for buying and installing
your mailbox, and for maintaining access (including snow removal) to
your box on the street with an area for the delivery vehicle to get
completely off the road without having to back up.
Since nearly everyone in the valley meets the requirement of one
address per mile minimum, and the combined costs (monetary, time,
environmental, safety) of the valley residents would more than cover
one or more full-time delivery persons, I encourage you to join me in
applying for home mail delivery.
To get your copy of the form, ask the Bieber Postmaster, pick one up
from the Big Valley Family Resource Center, download and print from the
online Big Valley news (bigvalleynews.net), pick one up from the
Chamber of Commerce booth at Big Valley Days, contact me, Zoe, at
294-5938 (leave your PO box # and zip code on the answering machine and
I will mail you a copy), or send me an email request to zoe@hdo.net and
I will email you a form which you can print and fill out.
Don't know your physical address? In Lassen County call Mary
Loslin at the Lassen County Surveyors Office, 251-8261. In Modoc
County call Nancy Ballard at the Sheriff's Office, 233-4416.