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MyspaceIt has come to our attention that our neighborhood Post Office is one of the 3,700 post offices scheduled to be closed by the end of September of this year.
We live at the Edgerly Apartments that house 159 low-income seniors just one block away from our local P.O., which is located at Victoria Court, 1221 State Street, #12, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. On this one city block alone, there are approximately 200 people (one other apartment building with 16 apartments and three businesses). We, and this entire neighborhood, use this local post office on a daily basis for everything from buying stamps, and mailing packages, to checking our postal boxes. The next-nearest Post Office is too far for most of our elderly tenants to walk and for the few who drive, there is no parking other than a few on-street spaces.
We aere asking your readers from this neighborhood to please call or write to:
_Senator Barbara Boxer, 312 N. Sprint Street, suite 1748, Los Angeles, CA 90012. (213) 894-5000.
_Mayor Helene Schneider, P.O. Box 1990, Santa Barbara, CA 93102.
_Assemblyman Das Williams, 101 W. Anapamu, Suite A, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. (805) 564-1649.
_Congresswoman Lois Capps, 301 E. Carrillo St., Suite A, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. (805) 730-1710.
Previous Month
Comments
Hi All, I agree with keeping our Post Offices going. I worked at the Post Office for 28 years on the windows and I gave a smile and lots of hard work to all that came up to my window. I saw lots of clerks do the same. I was proud and happy to serve everyone there. Post Offices are very important to business and regular consumers. Please keep this very important part of the community going. Thanks to you all.
leosbluesland (anonymous profile)
August 12, 2011 at 9 p.m. (Suggest removal)
If you want your Post Office to stay around then you have to help it show a profit by using it to mail letters and packages. If you purchase your labels on line, you can enter any post office zip code for the sending location, and that post office will get the credit for the sale. You can purchase your stamps from your local post office instead of the supermarket. You can purchase their fancy boxes. Stop whining and put your actual support into it. I go way out of my way to make sure that my small rural post office is in the black. I ask Bob how it is going. I ask Bob if I can help. I supply him with postal boxes that only customers can order so that he can have them for counter customers. The postal service is a part of your community and if you have not been supporting them, then it is your fault they are short of money. This goes for any other service you value, by the way.
shortrees (anonymous profile)
August 12, 2011 at 9:42 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The post office at Victoria Court has the best employees. They are friendly, helpful and have a sense of humor. It's WAY more convenient than the Main PO. Shortrees has a point, they need to be in the black. Let's all go there next week and purchase items and mail our letters from there. Show our support!!
tbonkers (anonymous profile)
August 12, 2011 at 10:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)
It is called Postal Service, as in Civil Service. The local USPS offices are now expected to be a money makers, and not provide a service. The Federal Government says the USPS is not an agency of the US Government. It is self supporting. Well, no it isnt self support because it is losing money and needs to take the axe to service outlets. The Postal Service is a quasi run government agency, like the CIA and the NSA. When the USPS was a government agency, the price of postage was considerably a lot less. The name says Service. But they do not provide service. They provide a retail product. And as a result the offices are now stores and stores can get shut down for lack of profit.
comentor (anonymous profile)
August 15, 2011 at 7:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I regret the negative comments about our postal workers. Sure, some are like commentors on this Board -- kind'a sour; but most are helpful and supportive.
No systems are perfect, but USPS has a pretty good record of coping with the advent of higher-cost private services which do not have the problem of having to serve ALL areas of the country.
Victoria Court is a nice little PO, but the problem is "little". Like "shoetrees" says, if you don't help them produce income, they'll have to close.
maven12 (anonymous profile)
August 15, 2011 at 10:07 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I would also love to see our post offices stay open, however small or large they are. For every location that is waning in profits, there are hundreds of people like the retirement home that still use them.
The sad but accurate truth though is that the world has changed. And so has business. The post office isn't just a government agency, it's run by a partially privatized company and it has a contract with the government. We're not really entitled to anything from them and it seems like a lot of their decisions over the past couple of decades, combined with the changing business climate from in-person transactions to online makes it hard to keep up the number of locations.
I don't see any reason why a retirement home (or anyone) couldn't just start to purchase postage online from the USPS. You don't even really need your own computer or laptop, you can use any secure portal to purchase postage. It's efficient, secure and easy to use.
Someone at the retirement home should certainly be able to be in charge of this and you can actually have the mail picked up when you request it.
Not to mention the fact that most of the postage purchased online is cheaper than in person and packages are cheaper, too, they even give you free delivery confirmation on their flat rate envelopes and boxes.
Native1 (anonymous profile)
August 30, 2011 at 1:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)