Three area communities may become lost in the mail

By SALLY Y. HAYES

Mt. Pleasant News

Zip codes 52630, 52647 and 52652 may be housed in other post offices in the near future. Three post offices in Henry County are on the United States Postal Service list for possible closure.

Hillsboro, Olds and Swedesburg are the trio of post offices that may cease operations.

Swedesburg will be having a community meeting Thursday, Sept. 22 at 7:30 p.m. to discuss the predicament the local post office is in. The meeting will be held in the Swedish American Museum and is open to the public.

The meeting was organized by the USPS and will be led by Wendy Berg from Milan, Ill. Berg is a manager of Post Office Operations. A questionnaire was sent to residents recently and may be returned at the meeting or mailed back to the USPS.

Olds and Mt. Union have also held similar meetings. However, Mt. Union is not one of the 173 post offices on the list of possible closures in Iowa any longer.

The three Henry County post offices are on a list of 178 potential closures in the Hawkeye State. Across the nation the USPS is listing 3,700 offices in question.

Also facing the question of closure in Iowa are four processing facilities. The four facilities are in Carroll, Cedar Rapids, Creston and Waterloo. There are 248 other processing facilities across the nation facing the same question.

?It?s a community sense of loss,? said Carole Lauger, a resident of Swedesburg.

The possible closures are due to financial difficulties in the USPS. According to a recent letter signed by Susan LaChance, Vice President of Consumer and Industry Affairs with the USPS, ?The current economic downturn and continued diversion of mail to the Internet has led to a dramatic 20 percent decline in mail volume since 2007. The decline in mail volume has also meant a decline in postal revenue.

?The economic reality demands that the Postal Service reduce its network,? the letter continued. LaChance?s letter also lists that more information about the closures and reductions can be found at http://about.USPS.com/news/facility-studies/welcom.htm.

According to the USPS?s website, ?The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.?

Also according to the USPS website, it had 67 billion dollars of revenue in 2010 while paying 1.9 billion dollars every two weeks in salaries and benefits.

Lauger believes the post office is more than just a place of business. She said, ?The post office is a place where neighbors see neighbors, and the bulletin board in the post office is used to post notices; it?s a friendly place other than just a place to mail packages and things.?

At the Olds meeting the possibility of placing a cluster of mailboxes in the park was mentioned, explained Ruth Meth, a resident of Olds. ?But that?s not going to work, there?s so much destruction there,? she explained.

Lauger feels that not having a post office in Swedesburg will become not only an inconvenience but a difficulty for many residents. ?I think one of the hardest things is the increasing elderly population here. And it is hard for them to drive any distance to go get mail or to depend on someone else to help them. And a lot of them don?t use the computer, it?s definitely going to be difficult,? stated Lauger.

The post office delivers mail to the unincorporated town of Swedesburg and nearby rural residents.

?The post office is one of the last vestiges in the community. To us it?s almost the same as losing the garbage pick up,? Lauger said.