Earlier this month, a coalition of Colorado’s mountain communities announced it was hiring a legal team from Kaplan Kirsh Rockwell amid widespread challenges with the United States Postal Service.

With Crested Butte leading the way, the towns of Avon, Buena Vista, Parachute, Silverthorne, Snowmass Village and Steamboat Springs have reportedly joined the consortium to explore their legal options.

According to Crested Butte News, the communities have agreed to pay up to $35,000 for the legal analysis. The town of Avon has budgeted $5,000 for its portion, said Eric Heil, the town’s manager.

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Avon’s Mayor Amy Phillips clarified that this is “not a lawsuit.” Rather, these communities are seeking legal guidance on what its options are for “inspiring the United States Postal Service to service communities like ours,” she added.

While each community — or zip code, as Phillips put it — in Colorado has different, specific challenges facing their post office, they are all in a similar boat and have a shared desire to find solutions.

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Phillips said that one of the main similarities of the towns involved is they “did not have street mail in 1974 when the postal deregulation happened, but that are now much bigger communities.”

With this population growth, the original post office locations are struggling to meet demand.

“Our facility has been being used for more than 20 years … and although there’s always been issues, they have become exacerbated, mostly because of the migration to online ordering and delivery,” Phillips said.

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Last year, Avon was reportedly one of the Western Slope post offices that received a space constraint