Main Street

Ray Holley
We should appreciate the Healdsburg City Council for appealing
the decision by the US Postal Service to decline to reopen a
downtown postal facility. The appeal may fall on deaf ears, but
sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe has value, and
the Council did.
Let’s ponder why a downtown Post Office makes sense for us and
for the Postal Service. Appearances to the contrary, Healdsburg is
not just a tourist destination. Within a block-and-a-half of the
Plaza you can find the Police Department, the Senior Center, three
churches, a school, a blueprint shop, insurance offices, a paint
store, a print shop, two barber shops, a yoga studio, an oil
company headquarters, financial advisors, medical offices and more.
Go another half a block and you can even find a newspaper
office.
The result is a zesty mélange of goods and services, shops and
offices, that serve locals and visitors alike. It makes sense, from
a community point of view, that we keep coming downtown to do
business as well as entertain visitors. It keeps our town healthy
and alive.
Keeping post offices downtown, whether it’s in Ukiah, Annapolis
or Healdsburg, would also be a wise decision and investment by the
Postal Service. I keep asking USPS representatives why they want to
take away a service model that, at least here, is popular and (most
likely) profitable.
Their answer is to cite the billions that USPS is in the red as
a justification to cut anything and everything. Their reasoning is
short-sighted. The Postal Service appears to be swinging its
hatchet indiscriminately, rewarding regional managers who are brave
enough to close offices despite community sentiment.
It’s a short term solution to a long term problem. I sincerely
hope that someone in the Postal Service is trying to look past this
crisis and think about what service model they hope to have in a
few years. A community post office is what we want, what we need,
and what we’ll support here in Healdsburg, not a regional carrier
annex, or whatever they call the complex in the business park by
the freeway.
How about a pilot project, a series of community post offices –
cozy, well-lit, downtown presences – that can not only remind us of
the old days, but be a model for the retail future of the Postal
Service? Successful small locations, run by the Postal Service, can
turn a profit while creating the freedom to try new services and
ideas, to become a laboratory for a very necessary transition to
whatever’s next for the Postal Service.
C’mon, USPS! Do you want to sit in the dark and figure it out
alone, or do you want the willing help and support of your loyal
customers? Give us a chance to work with you to sort out your
future. You’d have millions of volunteers, all over the country,
who want you to succeed.
Local restaurants have long used the bounty of local gardens,
orchards, henhouses and hillsides, and Spoonbar is no exception.
The restaurant/bar at H2hotel especially likes citrus and put out a
call to Healdsburgers to trade citrus for gift certificates.
Tosha Callahan, the pastry chef at Spoonbar, has handed out more
than $1,000 in gift certificates so far, for about 1,500 pounds of
citrus. Tosha has gratefully received Eureka and Meyer Lemons,
juicing oranges, sweet grapefruits, Clementines from Alexander
Valley, even locally grown Rangpur Limes.
According to Tosha, “There has been fresh squeezed orange juice
on our breakfast table at H2hotel since we’ve started the program,
and the lemon tart on my dessert menu for Spoonbar could never be
fresher!”
Cocktail artisan Scott Beattie is making limoncello and Meyer
Lemon cocktails as well. Tosha notes: “It has really been an eye
opener for what we can support as a community, being able to get
that fruit as it falls from your tree only makes room for more
fruit to grow and flourish! Together we can all remember what food
is really about and where it comes from, not very far!”
Tosha is accepting citrus and any other ripe fruit throughout
March, Sunday through Wednesday mornings at Spoonbar from 8 a.m. to
12 noon. The fruit will be used in the pastry kitchen and behind
the bar at Spoonbar.
Ray Holley likes that creamy lemon stuff they put in the tarts.
He can be reached at ra*******@gm***.com.