Locals concerned about possible PO closings

DIXON — In primary school, students were taught the Postman would deliver the mail rain or shine, sleet, snow or wind, without fail. However, in the era of the Internet, email, Facebook and cell phones, that promise is becoming harder and harder to keep.
Last Wednesday, the United States Postal Service held a meeting in Dixon to discuss the possibility of closing  the Dixon Post Office. Around 60 members of the Dixon community were present as two representatives from the USPS outlined where Dixon stands right now, and what might happen in the future.

A similar meeting was held in Concord Tuesday evening and a meeting for the Belden Post Office had been scheduled to start at seven pm on Wed, Sept 28 at the Belden Fire Hall.
A meeting concerning the future of the St. Helena Post Office will take place on Oct. 4. The meeting, which is open to the public, will be held at Immaculate Conception Parish Center and will run from 7-9 p.m.
Currently, there are no official plans to discontinue the Dixon Post Office. The USPS is collecting data concerning Dixon and 3,700 other Post Offices nationwide to determine whether or not the offices should be closed. St. Helena, Belden and Concord are other area Post Offices placed in the survey. Louis Pofahl, the District Representative for Congressman Jeff Fortenberry’s Office, was present to take comments and concerns back to the Congressman.
Dixon is just one of the 237 offices in the Central Plains District facing the likelihood of closure. Dawn Bayer, Lincoln, is the manager of Post Office Operations for the 686 and 687 zip codes and was on hand to facilitate the meeting.
“Customer demand is dropping throughout the Postal Service,” said Bayer, “The workload at offices like Dixon has dropped to the point where the USPS needs to decide if it is feasible to keep the Post Office open.”
Bayer said the Postal Service has been between a rock and a hard place for quite some time. In the 1970s, then President Nixon authorized the Postal Service to be altered dramatically.
Since the inception of the Postal Service, tax dollars had fed the Postal Service as it was classified as a government entity. However, the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 changed the Postal Service from a government entity to a government service. The USPS became a self-sufficient corporation that could not earn a profit even though it was a crucial means of communication. The biggest change was that taxes no longer supported the Postal Service.
The USPS was doing fine until the Internet and cell phones became mainstream communication tools, Bayer said.
Over the last four years, the Postal Service has posted a $20 billion loss in revenues. With quicker communication literally at their fingertips, customers have opted against the Post Office in favor of Facebook messages or email.
The terrorist attacks of 9/11 also had significant negative impacts on the USPS, with people being scared to open envelopes. The anthrax scare shifted the way advertisers utilized the Postal Service as well. Instead of purchasing first-class postage for sealed envelopes, advertisers began choosing postcard style flyers with a cheaper, standard mail rate.
Although most of the Postal workforce reduction has been done through attrition rather than outright lay-offs, the workforce has been greatly reduced in the past few years. Bayer said the total number of Postal employees was around 880,000 a few years ago, but it has been trimmed down to 537,000 in 2011. The cuts have been from the local Postmasters all the way up to ranking management, which has been cut by 20 percent.
The state of Nebraska alone has already seen a significant cut in postal services. There were 15 processing plants across the state, but the number has been cut to two, to help cut costs in the system.
Bayer said due to the reduction in processing plants, the promise of overnight delivery for First Class mail will likely be increased to a two-three day delivery promise.
As they have made cuts in nearly all facets of the system, Bayer said the USPS had to start looking at smaller, low-volume post offices to see where cuts could be made. The need for cuts has motivated the survey that Dixon and other local Post Offices are now a part of, said Bayer.
Bayer said the community of Dixon will have options if the USPS decides to discontinue the Post Office in town. The community will most likely shift from a P.O. Box delivery to a rural delivery system.
People attending the meeting were clearly against the potential closing of their Post Office, with many citing the lack of security for rural delivery as well as the loss of Postal Services at the Post Office. Others felt the discontinuation of small-town post offices would lead to the treatment of rural citizens as second-class citizens.
Bayer said the Dixon community can try to prove to the USPS that the Post Office should remain open. An official docket with the participants of the meeting will be kept on record with the survey materials. Any formal letters for or against the discontinuation will also be kept with the docket.
Those wishing to voice their opinion on the potential closure of any area Post Office and have it added to the official docket can send materials to: Norfolk Processing and Distribution Facility, ATTN: Theresa Jones, 1100 S. Pine Industrial Road, Norfolk, NE 68701-9997.
Similar meetings were held in Concord, Tuesday evening, and in Belden, Wednesday evening.