The U.S. Postal Service expects to save more than $500,000,000 a year by shutting down or cutting hours at about 13,000 post offices across the nation, mostly in rural locations.

Like on Shaw Island, where residents are not happy to find out they’re part of the plan.

And, perhaps even less so to realize their input on options about service-reductions, requested by the Postal Service, proved to be a meaningless exercise.

Less than 24 hours after a pair of postal service employees attended a community meeting July 31 on Shaw, presumably to discuss results of the service-reduction survey, a notice appeared on a post office wall informing islanders that daily office hours would be reduced from eight to four.

“All they really had to say or could tell us was ‘We don’t know,’ and that really ticked people off,” said Shaw Islanders, Inc. President Diana Wisen.

The Shaw Island post office is not alone. Postal Service spokesman Ernie Swanson said daily hours at the Deer Harbor and Waldron offices have already been reduced to six and that the operating hours of Orcas Island’s Olga office is due to also be reduced to six.

The postal service has lost “huge quantities” of revenue, Swanson said, in large part due to the growing reliance on digital communication and the steady decline of first-class mail.

Shaw residents have sought and enlisted the help of U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Bellingham, to advocate on their behalf. In an Aug. 7 letter to Post Master General Patrick Donaho, Larsen called on the Postal Service to classify the Shaw Island post office as a “Part-Time Post Office,” a designation under which the office would be allowed to operate six hours a day.