Sean C. Morgan
The U.S. Postal Service agreed to a five-month moratorium on closing post offices on Dec. 13 to allow Congress more time to enact postal reform legislation, but it still leaves a question mark for Cascadia residents who lost their Post Office in a fire Nov. 19.
During the moratorium, scheduled to end on May 15, the Postal Service will continue to study the impact of proposed closures on service and costs and to solicit community input.
The agency faces a projected $14.1 billion loss in fiscal 2012, and it is considering whether to close up to 3,700 post offices, 41 in Oregon including Cascadia, and 252 mail-processing facilities. The Postal Service decided to implement the moratorium after a group of senators expressed concern that the closures could eliminate as many as 100,000 jobs.
“Post offices and the services they provide are vital to the economic health of rural communities,” said Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden. “They add tremendous value to Oregon’s commerce and are often a center of civic life in rural parts of the state. As a vote-by-mail state, a fully operating postal service is at the core of Oregon’s democratic process. This decision from the Postal Service is a welcome victory for folks living in rural as well as urban areas while Congress looks to tackle postal reform in the coming year.”
That still leaves Jean Burger of Cascadia uncertain.
“Our Post Office got closed by an act of God the nineteenth of November,” she said. “We would just like to have mail service.”
The Postal Service needs to deal with the Cascadia situation, Burger said. “In a weekend, we could have a Post Office open up here that is as secure as the one we had.”
But the Postal Service won’t allow it, she said. Instead, it leaves Cascadia under emergency procedures that require around 60 residents to go to Foster to pick up mail. Some people still haven’t been able to get to Foster to pick up their mail.
“I don’t think they’re ever going to rebuild it and won’t deal with the issue,” Burger said. Cascadia, a Post Office for 113 years, is in an emergency suspension.
“That’s where they placed us, and they’re going to keep us there. (With the moratorium), it’s going to stay screwed up because they have permission to ignore us.”
They have permission to never make a decision, Burger said.
Several areas around Cascadia do not receive rural carrier service.
The problem could be solved if the Post Office would allow those residents to put up mailboxes and then begin delivering, Burger said. The Cascadia postmaster put in the paperwork to extend the rural routes, but Cascadia residents, many of whom have Foster addresses, still haven’t heard back.