By GAYLE WEBER

gweber@dailynews.net

COLBY -- Kevin Bottrell and Sharon Friedlander shudder when they think about the effects another postal shift could have on their newspaper.

Already, the Colby Free Press and its six sister papers have bumped up deadlines to meet the mail truck headed for postal sorting in Salina.

But if the U.S. Postal Service follows through with its proposal to send Colby's mail to Denver for sorting, meaning a two- to three-day delivery window, some of the paper's mail subscribers will be getting news days late.

While the post office has said the majority of newspapers — papers delivered in the Colby zip code area, for example — will be exempt from the processing center switch, smaller batches of papers mailed to small communities likely won't be.

"If they take our ones from ... the outlying area, if they're going to send those to Denver, then a lot of those folks are not going to get their papers for three and four days, which is ludicrous," said Friedlander, the Free Press' publisher.

All of USPS's plans are on hold until May, a measure requested by U.S. senators to give Congress time to look at passing "comprehensive postal legislation," according to a statement issued earlier this month by USPS.

However, Colby residents still are concerned about the effect a Denver sorting process would have on mail. Friedlander said a meeting to discuss the possible move earlier this month "didn't go over very well at all."

Taking Colby's mail to Denver is expected to save approximately $14,000, but Friedlander said that's nothing compared to the potential business the post office would lose as a result of the move.

"We have a lot of small communities around us that depend on us to get them school board meetings and county meetings, things that will affect them," Friedlander said of the newspaper's distribution area. "And in the long run, what the post office is doing is they're basically inviting us to not be a part of their system."

Bottrell, the paper's editor, said the Colby Free Press is likely one of the Colby post office's largest customers, sending out more than 20,000 newspapers each week between the Free Press and its sister papers in northwest Kansas. That doesn't include bills and other mailings.

If mail in the 677 zip code area surrounding Colby is able to remain in Colby for sorting, as it is now, there shouldn't be an issue. But if all mail is taken to Denver, it "isn't going to work for us," Friedlander said.

"Or we'll have to find some kind of alternative," Bottrell added.

The Colby Free Press publishes four times a week, while Goodland and Norton's papers publish twice a week, and newspapers in St. Francis, Bird City and Oberlin are weeklies.

"You work very, very hard to have the news be topical and timely," Friedlander said. "You can't do that if part of your delivery system is shortchanging you."