Historically Adventist community Loma Linda to see Saturday mail delivery
Historically Adventist community Loma Linda to see Saturday mail delivery
Residents of Loma Linda, California, United States, who have been accustomed to weekend mail service on Sunday for 80 years, will begin receiving mail this weekend on Saturdays.
Since the early 1930s, the federal government, as a courtesy to the largely Seventh-day Adventist community of about 20,000, has had mail delivered on Sunday instead of Saturday, a practice Post Office officials have said will have to go as the agency is trying to cut costs to alleviate a deficit.
Verah Mthombeni checks her post office box at the Loma Linda Post Office. Starting April 23, the U.S. Adventist hub Loma Linda, California, will receive mail on Saturday for the first time in 80 years. [photo: Gina Tenorio/Loma Linda Patch]
Acting postmaster Dan Mesa told Patch.com the response he's gotten has been mostly positive.
"I got a couple of complaints, but also a lot of compliments," Mesa said.
Post Office officials have reported the change will bring more timely mail delivery and savings in expenses, as the agency is required to pay postal workers a premium wage on Sundays. Post Office Spokeswoman Eva Jackson told the Redlands Daily Facts that with the change, letters mailed late Friday will no longer sit unprocessed until Monday because Loma Linda workers were off one day and employees elsewhere had Sunday off.
As one Patch.com commenter wrote, the one-day delay can mean a big difference for certain time-sensitive mail, such as child support and unemployment checks.
Residents and Adventist leaders in the area have expressed a range of responses.
"The city was bought by Seventh-day Adventists. It's been kept by Seventh-day Adventists. ... I am just appalled at this change," Loma Linda resident Sylvia Shepphard told Patch.com. "I'm ready to go up and stand at the post office with a petition."
Loma Linda Mayor Rhodes Rigsby, who is also Adventist, told Patch.com that for the city government, the change is not an issue.
"To me, it's kind of nice, but not required [to have Sunday delivery]," he said. "Some Adventists get their mail on Saturday all around the world without being horribly offended. I can see how some people would be used to it and they would maybe want to petition to do it. ... To me, the city government is Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, Seventh-day Adventist, everything all at once. It's not a Seventh-day Adventist government."
Resident Dru Turner, who is not an Adventist, told Redlands Daily Facts the change is long overdue.
"I think this should have stopped when the city incorporated [in 1970]," she said. "I believe in separation of church and state. I don't see how we in good conscience can ask a federal agency not to do what they do in other cities."
A major point of worry for some is whether this change will result in job loss for workers, as the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in March that Adventist carriers may be fired for refusing to work on Saturdays.
The Loma Linda University Seventh-day Adventist Church echoed this apprehension in a statement on Facebook: "[We] wish to express our appreciation to the United States Postal Service for honoring our members in the Loma Linda community by not delivering mail on Saturday, the Bible Sabbath, for the past 80 years. Our concern is now for those of our members or members of other local Seventh-day Adventist churches who may be forced to choose between honoring God and keeping their employment by this recent change in schedule."
Dan Mesa, acting postmaster in Loma Linda, told Redlands Daily Facts all 18 of his employees have worked in other post offices where Saturday work was required, and most have responded positively to the new schedule.
"You have to treat them all the same," he said. "Contractually, you can't [allow shift changes]. There's always people who don't want to work Saturday or Sunday."
The two largest Adventist churches in the area count 11,000 members. There are about a dozen Adventist churches in the city of Loma Linda.
At least two other cities in the U.S., including the Adventist college towns of Angwin, California, and Collegedale, Tennessee, have contracts guaranteeing no mail is delivered on Saturdays
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