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Would you be upset if your area post office closed?
Asked at Massachusetts Street on November 3, 2012
“ Well, yeah. It would depend. I live in a small town. Where would you get your mail?”
“ We don’t use it really. We have the mail delivered.”
“ It would be inconvenient every now and then.”
“ I don’t know if I would care if my post office closed. I do everything online. I feel bad for the employees.”
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Comments
misterlee 6 months, 3 weeks ago
Since I get my mail from a post office box, it would be a major inconvenience for me. It's also where the letter carriers get the mail they deliver to homes in Lawrence.,
Klumma 6 months, 3 weeks ago
Not one bit. Keep the carriers though. Andy T. ROCKS! Always has.
RoeDapple 6 months, 3 weeks ago
Well hell yes! But I've survived the demise of analog clocks, Morse code, Pony Express and wagon trains, the Post Office is just another dinosaur that is rapidly losing its usefulness. Kinda like newspapers.
Frankie8 6 months, 3 weeks ago
I still miss the Pony Express. Those ponies running full out was a glorious sight. They made good time and were 100% dependable. When I was a girl I wanted to be one of those riders. Alas, time moved on much too fast.
Klumma 6 months, 3 weeks ago
From yesterday. " RETICENT_IRREVERENT 21 hours, 14 minutes ago
"One of the main reasons it was instigated by the government was so farmers had longer daylight hours. At the time 90 percent of the population lived in rural areas." — Claire Webb
You better revise your revisionist history Claire. . . . . "
Damn R_I. You just gave both barrels. And I thought you were a tender guy. I know, being cut off from giving tenderness for a night can do that. I Love You.
Frankie8 6 months, 3 weeks ago
It is the truth, hardly both barrels.
CWGOKU 6 months, 3 weeks ago
Heck no, then folks wouldn't see my wanted poster. Mail delivery should be reduced to every other day
msezdsit 6 months, 3 weeks ago
“ We don’t use it really. We have the mail delivered.” says Gary
Well if your post office is closed how are you going to get your mail delivered?
riverdrifter 6 months, 3 weeks ago
That's what I thought!
msezdsit 6 months, 3 weeks ago
ups or fedex? Both ups and fedex use the us mail to deliver about 20% of their deliveries. Areas where it is not profitable for them to deliver mail. How will these people get mail if the Usps closes? The pony express?
RETICENT_IRREVERENT 6 months, 3 weeks ago
The plan has four options for smaller rural Post Offices.
(1) reduce the hours at the post office
(2) close the post office and offer rural delivery to box holders
(3) close the post office and encourage box holders to get boxes at another post office
(4) close the post office and open a contract postal unit in the community.
RETICENT_IRREVERENT 6 months, 3 weeks ago
Funny, Many of these options were instituted in the early 1900's.
deec 6 months, 3 weeks ago
Fedex and other carriers use the post office as the final leg of their delivery. If private carriers had to travel to all addresses themselves, prices would be outrageous. Already, sending a 1 oz document via Fedex costs over $10. The post office costs 45 cents.
Rural customers receive the same mail as urban customers-letters, cards, bills, ads, newspapers, magazines, gifts, online purchases, etc.
Privatization has not saved money when used for other formerly public services like prisons, military support services, child protection services or the like. I'm really tired of the myth of cost-cutting through privatization.
deec 6 months, 3 weeks ago
The post office receives NO money from taxes and is funded by their own revenue. The reason they are having a financial crisis is because the GOP Congress passed a bill requiring them to fund 75 years of health benefits. The bill was passed in December, 2005.
none2 6 months, 3 weeks ago
The truth is always somewhere in between. Yes that funding was wrong, but we also have to face the fact that lots has changed with mail.
Technology has greatly changed how we write each other, how we pay bills, etc. If we asked our parents or grandparents about the post office and how important it was to them in their youth, I seriously doubt you could get many to say it was insignificant. Think of the hay day when sometimes the nicest buildings in a town were the post office building.
So much has changed. Other than packages, it seems like most of the mail is junk, or things that legally require a letter to be sent (such as official government documents). There is still those rare occasions when something special comes through: A few that send cards (greeting, wedding announcement, graduation announcement, thank you, etc); a special letter; and that occasional check in the mail!
Where the post office failed was to adapt to the changes. I remember the internet back in the late 1990's when it still wasn't that commonly used . Back then the Post Office should have been reinventing itself. It wasn't that many years ago that while many businesses would allow you to download things from their websites, that the post office was still requiring the use of a dial-up modem to download things such as address correction information that businesses need when a customer moves.
The post office should have been an innovator using the internet. They should have done things such as Kinkos where you can make copies, print things, send faxes, etc. (Hopefully, USPS won't get into faxes as that is another form that should die out.) They should also have considered selling permanent email addresses that one can forward to/from your regular email with gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc.... (That is just an idea I always thought would work to avoid the need for email address changes.)
Hopefully, the post office can still reinvent itself somehow. Personally, I would hate to see post offices close in smaller communities because lots of times the churches, the grocery store (if they have one), their school system, and the post office is all a community has. That being said, a truly privatized post office could not justify keeping them open, the tax payers are not in a generous mood, and we can only borrow so long from places like China. Maybe we need to raise the rates on junk mail. Maybe we need to have a postal tax for those that use mail carriers other than the USPS. After all, most of them under serve rural areas anyway.
However, the bottom line is that the postal service has to make itself relevant again regardless of the urban/rural divide.
deec 6 months, 2 weeks ago
They wouldn't need a bailout if Congress hadn't mandated they pay healthcare benefits 75 years in the future, or if Congress would allow them to raise rates to cover their costs. The post office receives no tax money.
Frankie8 6 months, 3 weeks ago
You get one Vision Card and you keep that until you no longer qualify or lose it. Not monthly. Most people get their Social Security and Pensions electronically transferred to their bank every month.
Andini 6 months, 3 weeks ago
Yes. If they closed, I'd write them a letter!
deec 6 months, 2 weeks ago
Where I live, many people also receive their daily newspapers by mail. Many get their prescription medications, because there is no local pharmacy. Fedex and UPS deliver parcels daily to the post office to be delivered to rural and in-town customers. A lot of older people in the area don't use computers. They rely on the mail and television for information. Greeting cards are still popular in rural Nebraska, and a lot of business is conducted by mail.
riverdrifter 6 months, 3 weeks ago
Just do away with Saturday delivery. Who cares? Keep the Mon-Fri mail moving over the weekend but that's it. No delivery on Sat. I go to the P.O. twice a week max and like O-Bob sez, it's mostly junk.
deec 6 months, 2 weeks ago
The post office tried to cut out Saturday delivery; Congress wouldn't let them.
"The Postal Service is currently required by Federal law to deliver mail six days a week in fiscal year 2010, but not beyond then. Implementation of a five-day delivery schedule in fiscal year 2011 would be contingent upon Congress not enacting legislation to prevent such a change. In addition, the Postal Service must file a request for a non-binding advisory opinion from the Postal Regulatory Commission. If the Postal Service implements five-day delivery, it would take effect in fiscal year 2011 (Oct. 1, 2010, to Sept. 30, 2011)."
http://about.usps.com/news/electronic-press-kits/five-day-delivery/gen-faqs-answers.htm
http://www.yorknewstimes.com/editorial/preserving-rural-mail-service/article_3eaee7dc-23dd-11e2-bbe7-0019bb2963f4.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/opinion/nocera-its-d-day-for-the-post-office.html?_r=0
Klumma 6 months, 2 weeks ago
" My_Life 2 hours, 9 minutes ago
My mailman leaves most of the neighborhood mail in my box. He expects me to deliver it from there. He can't read an address evidently."
Sounds like Karma, weirdo . . . Imagine that.
Dejacrew423 6 months, 2 weeks ago
Yes I would be sad our post office closed but I would LOVE for them to find a new post master... this substitute post master is a joke and not doing his job.
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