Colorado Mountain Communities Preparing For Needed Support As U.S.P.S. Mailrooms Support Bill Passes U.S. Senate

SILVERTHORNE, Colo. (CBS4) - For some mountain towns, getting your mail delivered 2 weeks late is not surprising. Laura Blatnik has been getting her mail from the Silverthorne Post Office for 51 years now. Thursday was much the same as always when she went stopped in.

"I just went in there now asking for a package that I have been waiting on for two weeks and he said that it has arrived, but it is going to take them a day or so to get it out," Blatnik explained.

These kinds of issues have plagued smaller rural communities in Colorado for years. Places like Gypsum in Eagle County are desperate for modernization to an out-of-date office, where the town manager said the building is comparable to closet space and packages are spilling out the door and left in the elements for days at a time. Other spots like Dillon and Silverthorne experience long wait times and sporadic delivery timetables. This bill hopes to add funding to help workers and upgrade old offices.

The bill intends to reallocate funding from reportedly overfunded healthcare systems and help provide support to employees and infrastructure issues which are sorely needed to the tune of 45 billion dollars, according to Senator Michael Bennet (D). The bill passed the Senate with bipartisan support and 79 votes, the first in several efforts to have such support across the board from both parties. It now heads to President Biden's desk for a signature.

Bennet has taken a special interest in making sure the bill made it across the finish line.

"[It] should make a massive difference for the service that people see in Colorado, especially in rural areas where, the whole time I've been in the senate I have heard complaint after complaint after complaint," Bennet said.

"It is not because of the workers at the post office, they just haven't had the resources to be able to do what they need to do, now they will," Bennet added.

While efforts to get something done for post office employees have long been on the agenda, Bennet said this is far past overdue.

"This was particularly insane because everybody understood the nature of the problem," Bennet said.

The Senator fully expects the President to sign off on the bill. He told Mountain Newsroom Reporter Spencer Wilson it will take time to see the changes, but progress is moving in the right direction.