Wellington welcomes postmaster

By JoAn Bjarko
North Forty News

Wellington's new postmaster brings 18 years of experience with the U.S. Postal Service to the job she started on Aug. 3.

Postmaster Kathy Secora-Arguello previously served as postmaster in Leadville for three years. That post office ranked at the same level as Wellington in terms of revenue and mail volume, she said, but she sought the new job to be closer to family on the Front Range. She and her husband have children and stepchildren in Fort Collins, Centennial and Pueblo.

Secora-Arguello said she will have to acclimate to a warmer climate again. She saw 220 inches of snow her first year in Leadville and temperatures never exceeded 80 degrees.

A Colorado native, who grew up in the Castle Rock and Larkspur area, Secora-Arguello started her career with the postal service in 1992 as a letter carrier in Pueblo. She landed her first postmaster job in 2004 in Boone.

"My mother was a rural route carrier, and I think it just rubbed off on me," she said of her career decisions. "I had no idea I wanted to be a postmaster, but I did want to work for the postal service."

The Wellington postmaster said her professional goal is "to provide the community great customer service."

"The employees are a great bunch, a great team, and I just want to see that continue," she said.

Secora-Arguello replaces LaVonne Boersma, who became Wellington's postmaster in 1989 and retired in March. Postmasters in Livermore and LaPorte have also retired and have not yet been replaced.

Retirements are typical of life in the U.S. Postal Service these days. The agency has been offering early-out options to save money without layoffs.

That and other changes will help the postal service cope with an $8 billion shortage projected at the beginning of the 2010 fiscal year, according to western region spokesperson Al DeSarro.

Affecting customers in the Wellington, LaPorte, Bellvue, Livermore and Red Feather Lakes zip codes is the change to sorting mail in Denver rather than Longmont, DeSarro said. The switch, made in July, means mail delivered to these post offices is arriving about two hours later, so route drivers are getting a later start. DeSarro said, however, that mail should still go to Denver from local post offices on the same schedule.

Denver has the largest sorting facility in Colorado and higher-speed equipment, he noted, so it can sort a larger amount of mail in less time.

"We're doing a lot of changing all over to save on costs," he said. "It's all with the theme of how can we continue to save on costs and be more efficient."

In Wellington, Secora-Arguello said, about half of the morning mail from Denver is arriving at 8 a.m. and the rest at 9:30 a.m.

"As soon as that mail comes in, we hustle," she said.