Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Plan will reduce hours of operation in all but three Whitman County post offices.
An announcement from the United States Postal Service May 9 proves good news for the efforts to avoid closing the Malden post office which was among rural offices listed for closure last year.
The USPS announced a new strategy to keep the nation’s smallest Post Offices open by limiting retail window hours to match customer use. For Malden, its hours will be reduced from eight hours a day Monday through Friday to four hours per day.
“Well I guess it’s a good way to save money,” said Malden Mayor Ted Maxwell. “We can get our packages and all our stuff; we’ll just have to fit our schedules with theirs. I think reduced hours is a whole lot better than no post office.”
The plan would keep access to the retail lobby and to P.O. boxes, along with not affecting the town’s zip code. A public meeting will be held to gather input on the new hours.
The new schedule will begin this fall. At that point, according to Ernie Swanson, spokesman for the Postal Service’s Seattle District office which serves most of Washington and north Idaho, Malden will be safe from closure for the foreseeable future.
“There are no further plans for Malden,” said Swanson.
The reduction in hours plan will effect 13,000 post offices across the country, from a total of 32,000.
“I was afraid of that,” said Nick Backman, Malden resident who has led efforts of public comment and a potential appeal, based on an argument that the 2008 $671,000 USDA grant which brought high-speed internet to Malden would be wasted.
“I would still appeal the reduction in hours. It’s nice that it remains open but it still goes back to my original argument. If we’re gonna set up Malden with a high speed internet to attract new business and create new business, we need a full-service post office. Malden was a three-legged table when it came to development. The fourth leg was the internet. Now we’re talking about kicking out the third leg , the post office, and we’re back to hobbling along.”
The USPS estimates a savings from the plan of $500 million every year.
“We’ve listened to our customers in rural America and we’ve heard them loud and clear – they want to keep their post office open,” said Postmaster General and CEO Patrick Dohahue. “We believe today’s announcement will serve our customers’ needs and allow us to achieve real savings to help the Postal Service return to long-term financial stability.”
The Malden location was slated for closure last October and entered a public comment period which ended in December. The hours of operation have not changed. The location will continue its eight-hour per day schedule until a public meeting is held to determine the new, reduced hours.
Malden, like most other towns in Whitman County, has no residential delivery. Residents go to the Post Office to get their mail.
“I do feel sorry for the farmers,” said Backman, regarding the coming four-hours a day schedule. “They go by their crops, not by the Post Office hours.”
Mayor Ted Maxwell, a retired postal clerk and Navy veteran, looks at the situation overall with skepticism.
“The problem with the Post Office is it’s always Congress that controls it. When that is the case, logic doesn’t help you understand,” he said. “If you had unions on the one side and Congress on the other, how are you gonna manage your Post Office? That’s the situation they’re in.”
The reduction in hours plan is part of an overall strategy to bring the Postal Service back to stability, said spokesman Swanson.
“This is just one step,” he said. “It’s not gonna save us all by itself. But a half a billion dollars is a half a billion dollars. We have to show Congress that we’re not just looking to them, but we’re doing things on our own.”
Overall, the announcement was not unexpected to Mayor Maxwell.
“Nothing about the Post Office surprises me,” he said. “I just hope my retirement check keeps coming in.”
In the end, it appears the public comment sent in by Malden residents, as well as rural residents around the country, made a difference.
“The problem is feedback from the public doesn’t pay the bills,” said the mayor. “We’re just sitting around here drinking coffee wondering what’s coming down the road.”
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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