Some postal cutback inevitable, but should be fair

With fewer and fewer people required to keep bigger and bigger farms in operation, declining rural population has been an issue for a century.

Smaller towns have been struggling to maintain basic services, with grocery stores becoming almost a luxury in many communities.

Declining populations mean fewer children, and past decades have seen more and more schools consolidating to serve counties or even regions instead of individual towns.

The latest sign is a move by the U.S. Postal Service to consider closing smaller post offices with fewer customers.

The Parks post office closed two weeks ago, and others that may be closed include Wilsonville, Enders, Edison, Champion, Danbury, Farnam, Max, Stockville and, in Kansas, Herndon and Norcatur.

It's not surprising that the cutbacks are being considered. The U.S. Postal Service does not receive tax funds for operations, and has cut it staff by about 130,000 and reduced its costs by $12 billion as more and more first-class mail moves to the Internet. As an Associated Press story pointed out, about half of all bill payments are made by Internet today, compared to 5 percent a decade ago.

Postal officials have sought permission to reduce mail deliver to five days a week, and stop making a $5.5 billion annual pre-payment on future retiree medical benefits, something no other government agency is required to make.

Without that payment, the service would have made a profit over the past four years.

Some of the slack could be picked up by new Village Post Offices, which can handle things like flat-rate packages, stamp sales and post office box service -- probably a lot like the first rural post offices in general stores.

But we'd still need to go to regular post offices for things like passports and other complex services. And, for businesses who depend on the post office for vital services, as well as individuals who receive drugs and medical supplies, mail service is vital.

We don't know if many picked up on the irony at a local meeting about a potential closing, where those in attendance were urged to e-mail officials with their concerns, but we hope they write those e-mails, letters and make those calls.

Yes, we could live without Saturday mail service, but rural residents need to be vigilent that we don't bear an unfair portion of the pain resulting from cutbacks.