Rural Post Offices Threatened

You might have heard about cutting costs for the United States Postal Service.

One of the suggestions was to cut mail delivery service to five days a week instead of six while early retirement offers and the closure of district offices are other efforts to cut costs for the floundering agency.

However one of the more disturbing suggestions came from Dan Blair (head of the independent postal regulatory commission).

The suggestion was to close small and rural post offices. This would mean that rural areas such as Fawnskin would suffer.

Since we do not have street delivery it was not clear how this would work since box service would still require man power and speculation is that Fawnskin would be lumped under the jurisdiction of Big Bear Lake.

The open position of Fawnskin Post Master was advertised and several local candidates applied.

However the position was canceled just last week and looks like it will remain unfilled.

I thought this quote was interesting:

The payment of workers’ salaries comes first, he said, but other bills may have to wait.

When was the last time the post office salaries and rates were audited and adjusted–are they reasonable? Just how much are those pay rates and benefits?

How can the agency take steps to allow more profitable operations of the post office instead of eliminating positions and closing offices?

Cutting positions and closing offices does not address the overall issue and is a band-aid approach to a larger problem.

Do you have any bright ideas or suggestions on this matter? How about our postal guys and gals–what do you think?

I hope you will leave your comments below

Fawnskin locals are encouraged to write the following representatives to protest the closure of rural and small post offices:

Congressman Jerry Lewis
2112 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-5861

1150 Brookside Avenue
Suite J-5
Redlands, CA 92373
(909) 862-6030
(800) 233-1700

Senator, Bob Dutton
State Capitol
Rome 5094
Sacramento, CA
94248-0001
(916) 651-4031

8577 Haven Ave
Suite 210
Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730

3560 University Ave
Suite B
Riverside, CA 92501
(951) 715-2625

Assemblyman Paul Cook
State Capitol
Room 5164
Sacramento, CA 94249-0065
(916) 319-2065

34932 Yucaipa Boulevard
Yucaipa, CA 92399
(909) 790-4196

Update April 11, 2009
From the NSIA who contacted the Postal Commission:
Please be assured the Chairman did not suggest closing small office as reported, and he, in fact, affirmed what we found in our year-long study of universal service that small post offices are a vital element of the universal service commitment of the Postal Service.

He also indicated that changes to any part of universal service must be considered in light of the entire universal service mandate. The report recommended that the impacts on societal benefits of postal services should be assessed before any decisions are made to change or eliminate universal service.

Experience shows that post offices are often the sole face of the Federal government in rural and remote communities. The USO study, available on our website at www.prc.gov, also indicated that communities rely on these post offices as community foundations and the loss of post offices in rural areas compound the economic problems facing these communities.

Locals have also expressed the need for a petition or letter to Lewis since this issue concerns the Federal Government.



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5 Responses to “Rural Post Offices Threatened

  • 1
    Fawnskin Junkie
    March 30th, 2009 18:37

    5 days delivery week is a great idea and by this I mean mon through friday.

    The closing of our local Fawnskin office should not be tolerated.
    The original idea of Benjamin Franklin was that every community, city should have a post office and it was to be a service to the American people and to those people in those communities.
    Ive already written my letters to the congressman and will mail them tomorrow at my local post office FAWNSKIN!!

  • 2
    GG (Gossip Girl)
    March 30th, 2009 19:51

    @Fawnskin Junkie: Great! We love action and hope to keep our post office going strong.

  • 3
    Shadow's Mom
    March 31st, 2009 18:40

    I am a postal worker and was one of the applicants for the Fawnskin postmaster job. I will write letters to our representatives as well. I would hate to see the Fawnskin post office close. I think that they would probably keep the P.O. boxes at Fawnskin, but may close the window because it is not a big money maker. Cynthia offered passports and that helped bring in a little more money. That service is not offered any longer at Fawnskin unfortunately. Every little bit of revenue helps. Postal workers do make good money and we have great benefits. That is the only reason that most of us work for the post office. It is run extremely badly, supervisors usually don’t have a clue. If someone is a bad worker or is a complainer, very often they promote them to management to shut them up. Good workers are often rewarded by giving them more of other workers jobs to do. Like I said, it is a very poorly run business. But I always say, the post office is not my life, it is just a way to earn income to live my life. I do the best job that I can every day and that is how I keep my sanity.

  • 4
    GG (Gossip Girl)
    March 31st, 2009 19:44

    Thanks for leaving your comment and thoughts. Figures, the squeaky wheel and all. I know many of us would love to have you working in Fawnskin and we all hope the Fawnskin PO remains operational without BBL.

  • 5
    Fawnskin Junkie
    April 10th, 2009 20:41

    Passports are not being done because of budgetary cutbacks on training. Ive have spoken to the nice gentlemen there he wants to get the training but it has fallen on deaf ears.
    Fawnskin post office does make money but will not ever make as much as a Big Bear Lake type office because of the volume of people that live there and the tourists. There are many similar offices to Fawnskin that have MORE than one employee so our po here is well into the black and is a very efficient operation. Our local po is the best its ever been especially compared to the uh last one.
    By the way I am a former postal worker 30+ years!! Cant believe I survived it. It can be really bad.