Fairfield residents protest to ‘Save our Post Office’

FAIRFIELD – A group of about 20 people gathered outside the Fairfield Post Office Saturday to protest recent changes being made to the agency.

The protest was part of a nationwide day of action aimed at drawing attention to mail slowdowns initiated as cost-saving measures. The Fairfield group chanted slogans urging the removal of Post Master General Louis DeJoy, saying 'Hey hey, ho ho, Louis DeJoy has got to go.” Other slogans included 'We love the mail, we won't let it fail,” and 'Whose post office? Our post office.”

The event was organized by Fairfield resident Michael Moore, who was among a handful of protesters to 'dress up” as a United States Postal Service package. According to an article published Thursday in the Washington Post, DeJoy planned to decommission about 13 percent of the Postal Service's massive mail sorting machines, capable of sorting 21.4 million pieces of mail per hour. The Postal Service has been decommissioning mail-sorting machines as the volume of mail continues to decline, though the 671 machines to be taken out this year represented a steep increase over the prior two years when 125 machines were decommissioned in 2018 and 186 machines were decommissioned in 2019.

Moore said he is concerned about the effects of removing these machines, given that the mail they were processing will now have to be done by hand, and thus much more slowly. Moore also spoke about the role the Postal Service plays in elections where it handles absentee ballots.

'We have gone though many elections using the Post Office to handle ballots with almost no problems, and the problems that did occur were identified and corrected,” he said.

Protester Cheryl Fusco Johnson made her own poster for the event which said 'Save America's Postal Service – Don't Sabotage It.” Johnson said she made the poster because she was distressed watching DeJoy testify before Congress just a day earlier. Though DeJoy committed to delivering ballots and election mail on time, he did not commit to bringing back the decommissioned sorting machines, saying they were not needed.

Margaret Dwyer attended Saturday's protest because 'The Post Office is the backbone of the community, and helps the nation stay connected.” She said the Post Office provides essential services private companies do not, like delivering to rural areas.

'The Post Office is not a business, and cutting its resources will not help it improve,” Dwyer said. 'The mail service is something for all of us.”

This belief that the Post Office is especially important for rural residents was shared by many protesters, such as Laurie Reminick, who said the cuts to service are going to especially hurt the people who live in the country.

Johnson said she and her husband trust the Post Office to deliver their medications, and because the coronavirus has kept them indoors, they rely on it even more, for supplies such as groceries. She said she's sending more greeting cards now because she and her husband don't want to attend functions in-person.

Johnson said the recent slowdown in the mail has had devastating consequences, such as thousands of baby chicks dying because they were not delivered on time.

Richard Hulley said he believes the cuts to service are part of a long-term plan to privatize the Post Office. Dorothy Drees felt the same way, and she said that was one of the reasons she attended Saturday's protest.

'The Post Office is a not-for-profit. It's not supposed to make money,” she said.

Karen O'Connor said she's doing her part to save the Post Office. She said that if everybody bought a book of stamps and didn't use them, like she is doing, the Post Office would be able to escape from its financial difficulties.