Voice support for Hedley’s Post Office

Donley County residents need to pull together to help the community of Hedley save an important resource to the town – its post office.

The Hedley Post Office has been without a fulltime postmaster since last August, and now its customers have been notified that the US Postal Service would like to close up shop there in favor of a rural carrier system. Retail postal services would be available only in Clarendon or Memphis, and the folks in Hedley are not happy about the idea.

Postal customers will get their chance to voice their concerns in a public meeting with postal representatives next Wednesday, July 20, 2011, at 4:30 p.m. at the Hedley Baptist Fellowship Hall, located at 310 N Main, and every interested party needs to be there.

The Hedley school and local businesses depend on the post office for many day-to-day
functions, and other local government functions and senior citizens would also be harmed by the shuttering of the post office. With no local post office, life will become a little more inconvenient for the folks in Hedley. Imagine a half-hour round trip just to mail a package. There are also delivery considerations that need to be looked at. For example, when will folks in Hedley get their Clarendon Enterprise each week?

There are huge forces at play here. According to a USPS press release: “The Postal Service lost $8.5 billion in fiscal year 2010 (Oct. 1, 2010 to Sept. 30, 2010) — that equates to losing more than $23 million every single day of the year. Mail volume has declined by 43.1 billion pieces in the past five years — from an all-time high of 213 billion in 2006 to 170 billion in 2010.” USPS says it is doing “everything possible to reduce costs and save money — this will involve consolidating operations wherever possible.”

By its own admission, the United States Postal Service is in trouble, and rural America is going to take a hit in any attempt to retool the system for the 21st century. Other area post offices have less business than Hedley and may face closure. Right now it is Hedley’s post office on the chopping block. One has to wonder if trends continue how long it will be before Clarendon or Claude or Memphis is faced with something similar. We may not lose retail postal services completely here, but it is foreseeable that the day may come when the post office contracts with a private business for these services.

There is a real fear that the postal service in America is headed for obsolescence. More and more people prefer to use e-mail and web-based communications for everything from personal correspondence to paying their bills. Every postage increase drives more business away from the post office, and shuttering rural post offices, in addition to making rural life harder, will likewise force people to look at alternatives. In 10 years, the Post Office as we know it today may be extinct, killed by a combination of apathy, technology, and poor management.

But that certainly does not mean that rural America should just sit by and watch it happen. In fact, now more than ever, it is time to stand up and be counted and let USPS officials know exactly how integral post offices are to rural life.

Max Heath, Postal Chairman for the National Newspaper Association and a friend of your humble editor, has some advice for saving rural post offices that we all need to pay attention to:

1. Provide written comments within the proper time frame, keeping them factual rather than emotional. Remind decision makers that the proposed rules require USPS to “provide a maximum degree of effective and regular postal services to rural areas, communities, and small towns where post offi ces are not self-sustaining.”

2. Be sure local businesses are involved and make their voice heard. Attend the public hearing.

3. Contact your representative and senators and ask their help in applying their clout to the objections of others.

4. If you lose, you have the right of appeal to the PRC within 30 days of the posting of the final determination.

Everyone who has a stake in the Hedley Post Office needs to be at the public meeting next Wednesday, July 20, 2011, at 4:30 p.m. at the Hedley Baptist Fellowship Hall. And everyone also needs to send written comments to: Consumer Affairs Manager, USPS Fort Worth District, 4600 Mark IV Parkway, Fort Worth, TX 76161-9631, before the July 25, 2011 deadline. And remember to keep your comments factual and polite.
Let’s make sure every decision maker knows that Hedley needs its post office.

Meanwhile…
Kudos to Chamber of Commerce President Charlie Smith for his work on Clarendon’s July Fourth activities. All in all, everyone seemed to have a great time; and while there may have been a couple of hiccups, everything went very smoothly. This is especially true when you consider Smith didn’t have much in the way of help and he had never been in charge of the parades and other activities before. Improvements can be made with experience, but for now, the community should thank him for his effort.