HARMONY — Negotiations to keep the Harmony Post Office open have failed.

Borough officials on Monday notified residents via a posted notice at the borough's municipal building that all postal customers will be transferred to the Zelienople Post Office July 1, Council President Michelle Barto said Tuesday.

The news comes despite last-minute attempts by borough officials to keep the post office open.

Harmony's post office, which has been housed in the municipal building since 1966, will officially suspend operations Wednesday after postal officials decided last month not to sign another three-year lease with the borough and chose to transfer customers to the Zelienople Post Office.

Those officials sent a letter to Harmony residents at the end of May stating their intent to "temporarily" suspend operations at the post office, citing cramped spaces and an unsafe working environment.

Harmony officials tried to keep the post office open for at least another month in an attempt to find a long-term solution for residents. They just didn't have enough time, Barto said Tuesday, to brainstorm and come up with a viable solution that would work for the entire borough.

"I just want to say that we're very disappointed the post office didn't give us more than a month's notice because, in my opinion, lots of things could have worked out," Barto said. "(Postal officials) really in my opinion left the borough's hands tied."

Barto said the council hoped to keep the post office open under its own supervision with the office open during normal business hours Mondays through Fridays.

However, officials with the U.S. Postal Service required that the post office be staffed and open on Saturdays, which Barto said isn't possible because it's a weekend and outside of the borough's normal operating hours.

Postal officials weren't open to the idea of no Saturday delivery, however, so negotiations ended there.

Barto said borough officials now are resigned to the fact that their post office will close at the end of the month. They tried diligently, she said, to work out other solutions with postal officials and held several meetings to brainstorm ideas.

In the end, she said, she hopes residents are aware borough officials tried their hardest to resolve the conflict.

"I would hope people understand the borough did everything they could to try to make the best of the situation," she said.

Residents now have only two options: apply for home delivery or be assigned a post office box in Zelienople. Those options aren't very appealing to the borough's residents.

Harmony Mayor Cathy Rape isn't exactly satisfied with home delivery, either. She said mailboxes on the sides of the streets will take away from the quaint, historic feel to the tiny borough and would be more of an eyesore than a solution to the post office debacle.

"As far as our historical little town, I don't want to see mailboxes cropping up all over the place, and I just wish we would have known this was happening earlier," Rape said Wednesday. "Harmony's had a terrible injustice in how much time we had to get a hold of this situation."