The U.S. Postal Service is changing its plan to cut more than $1 billion in overhead expenses.
At first, it wanted to close many post offices and processing plants, including one in White River Junction. But after a public outcry, the USPS has proposed instead to drastically cut back hours in rural post offices.
The Upper Valley town of Thetford would be especially hard hit by the latest plan. The roughly 2,000 people who live there can now choose from among five little Post Offices. One of the most popular stops is Baker’s General Store, in Post Mills.
Behind his window next to the deli counter, Postmaster Bob Totz chit-chats with a customer about Totz’s fledgling cottage mustard business-which he may have to ratchet up, if he loses his full-time job at this PO.
Like all Postmasters, Totz has been forbidden by the Postal Service to discuss the latest cost-cutting plan, so he doesn’t. But general store owner, Mike Pomeroy, says it only stands to reason that if you cut back hours you lose customers.
"The problem is they’re not looking at it as a business model," Pomeroy laments.
The proposal to reduce hours would affect about 140 PO’s in Vermont-a large number, compared to other states. Most would be open only four hours a day, and some only two. It’s not clear yet what the new schedules would be, or when the changes would take affect. Pomeroy says a lot of jobs would be lost, but the issue hasn’t yet grabbed headlines. "And no one is screaming yet," he says.
From a business perspective, Pomeroy thinks it would be better to eliminate some rural delivery routes.
"Because, I mean if you look at what they are paying for miles for these people and what’s being delivered, that’s the model that doesn’t make sense," he says.
Denise Varano, spokesperson for the Postal Service, says it will try to tailor solutions for different communities. "The plan is devised so that we can keep most existing post offices in place but with modified retail outlets to match customer use," she says. And there are customers in Thetford who say that while they would be inconvenienced by reduced hours, they understand the need for cutbacks.
But some worry that making hours more scarce and sporadic will only hasten the end of rural post offices. And that, says Thetford Selectman Tig Tillinghast, could be the death knell for villages throughout Vermont.
"A village is not just a critical mass of people," he says. "You can have a bedroom community that has a ton of people in it. It’s the diversity of what’s there".
That diversity, he says, is created by combining post offices and stores and residences and schools, building the identity of a village, and bringing people into the center for a variety of reasons.
The Postal Service says it will hold community meetings in September to discuss its latest proposal, but the hearing schedule has not been set.