I'd be wary of local knife sharpeners. A lot of them are commercial services who sharpen the practically disposable knives used by butchers and low-end restaurant kitchens. They use a grinding wheel and will take off noticeable millimeters of metal each time. Your knives will get thinner and thinner, will have a very toothy, concave edge, and will disappear entirely after a couple of dozen sharpenings.
If you want your knives to be really sharp, you have to bite the bullet and learn to sharpen them yourself. Because a knife doesn't stay sharp for more than a few days of hard use. It doesn't stay exceptionally sharp for more than a couple of hours of use. Most of us learned how to cut with European knives of middling sharpness and brutish geometries, that could be whacked back into serviceability on a butcher's steel ... but these knives were never actually sharp. IF this level of sharpness is ok, then you can send your knives off every decade or so and just maintain on a steel. But it would still make sense to send them to someplace good.
I'd recommend sending knives to a real pro (like Dave at Japanese Knife Sharpening or Jon at Japanese Knife Imports) if you have a major repair, or need a serious reprofiling, or just need a benchmark for what's possible. But unless you learn to sharpen, you'll spend most of your time using unsharp knives.
