Local post offices on the list to possibly close

Wanda English Burnett
Editor

Post Offices in Ripley County could be affected by the latest announcement on Tuesday from the U.S. Postal Service.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe announced at a news conference that they are exploring ways to save money. Saying they have lost a tremendous amount of first class mail revenue, they are looking at closing over 3,000 post offices and possibly going to five day mail service, eliminating the Saturday delivery.

Among the postal offices that have been placed on the Expanded Access State List for Indiana are Friendship and Pierceville in Ripley County. Florence and Canaan are among those in nearby counties.

Janice Wittich, post master relief for the Friendship Office, told The Versailles Republican that Friendship Post Office is indeed on the list to be considered for possible closure. She also confirmed that people in Friendship are not happy about it.
Village Post Offices could be the future post office for several areas according to information from the United State Postal Service.

The Village Post Office would be located within an existing community in places such as businesses, town halls, or government centers and would be run by those entities.
The USPS says the Village Post Office would offer a range of popular products and services, the ones most used by customers such as collection boxes, PO Boxes, Forever stamps and prepaid priority mail flat rate boxes and envelopes.

Perhaps the upside to the village concept would be longer hours than conventional post offices with opportunities for enhanced customer service.

It was noted that the USPS will consider a Village Post Office “in locations where a community either has no existing Post Office or the community would be affected by ongoing postal facility study initiatives currently being conducted”. In other words where a post office would be closed.

The postal service says the new Village Post Office is an important example of how they are changing to better meet America’s needs.