Small Post Offices' Days Are Numbered

The Los Angeles Times reports, "Once a municipal landmark found in even the smallest communities, the neighborhood post office is slowly going the way of the handwritten letter. So much so that the U.S. Postal Service is considering closing nearly 1,000 of its smaller branches nationwide, with dozens of them in California."

Reporter Tony Barboza pens, "But even as the Postal Service weighs public reaction, small communities worry that they'll lose a needed service. And in places like San Juan Capistrano, officials are fighting to save their post offices."

According to Barboza, "Closing the facility would force residents to trek to a larger one 10 miles away in Mission Viejo. And it wouldn't be much consolation that that office, founded before the neighboring suburb had incorporated, still bears the name San Juan.City leaders are united in opposition to the possible shuttering of the sole post office in the community of 36,000."

Richard Maher, a Postal Service spokesman, is quoted in the piece as saying, "It's not a hit list, and there are no decisions made yet. We're calling it a consolidation."

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