Harwood area citizens against possible postal closure

Jasper Postmaster Heather Mitchem explains the U.S. Postal Service's consideration of closing the Harwood Post Office at a Thursday night community meeting in Harwood. A similar meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., Monday, in Deerfield.

HARWOOD -- Sixty people were skeptical and unhappy about the prospect of their post office's closure as part of U.S. Postal Service downsizing, but they were a good deal more polite than some customers at other such recent meetings, said Jasper Postmaster Heather Mitchem, presiding over the glum, hour-long event.

"This is only a study, I can assure you," said Mitchem. "The decision is not already made."

Requesting an orderly session, she said, "We have been to several meetings lately and it can get really heated."

Ron Reed of rural Harwood, listens to the answer to his question about the possible closure of the Harwood Post Office. Reed was one of about 60 people to attend the Postal Service's Thursday night forum. James R. Campbell/Herald-Tribune.

Mitchem said she and Freeman Postmaster Pam Crowder recently held sessions at Roscoe and Moundville and will be in Deerfield at 6:30 p.m. Monday.

She said the Harwood office was placed on the closure block by Area Supervisor Rick Belcher of Kansas City because it produced less than $27,500 in revenues last year and averaged fewer than two hours' daily customer service.

Answering a variety of questions from the crowd in this rural setting 20 miles northeast of Nevada, Mitchem said Harwood Rural Carriers Donnie Burchett and Terry Schierek will continue their work regardless of Belcher's decision in about 75 days.

Noting Harwood's 42 rented boxes get fewer than 200 pieces of mail per day, Mitchem said 51 boxes are available at the Schell City Post Office 6.6 miles away.

An Amish man, one of about a dozen Amish who attended, referred to the greater time needed for traveling in a horse-drawn buggy. "Ten miles is easy for someone in a car, but for us it's a half-day's drive," the man said.

Mitchem recommended the rural carriers for those finding a trip to Schell City inconvenient, saying, "They are a post office on wheels.

"They sell stamps and money orders but not debit cards."

For the Harwood office to be closed, she said, Belcher will have to include it in his recommended shutterings among 133 offices on the block in the Postal Service's Mid-America Region.

Those decisions will go to Washington and be finally acted on in about 140 days, or in January, Mitchem said.

She said the Postal Service's congressionally mandated multi-billion-dollar pension pre-payments, combined with Americans' increased use of e-mails and other alternative communication modes, have caused the private corporation to lose 42.6 billion pieces of mail since 2006.

Mitchem said the Jasper office, 40 miles south of Nevada, has lost more than 40 percent. "We're trying to control what we can control," she said.

Harwood's postmaster is Karen Coy.

Offices slated for review in Vernon County include Metz, Milo, Deerfield, Harwood and Moundville; but the Postal Service notes that many offices that have been reviewed will remain open.

Throughout the nation, the postal service said July 26 it will study 3,653 local offices, branches and stations for possible closing. But many of those may be replaced by what the service is calling Village Post Offices in which postal services are offered in local stores, libraries or government offices.