Daily Herald editorial

It is hard for a newspaper that covers rural places to take this stance, but reality must be faced: Perhaps not every place in America needs a post office anymore.

Perhaps closing the post offices in Waltham, Hayward, Twin Lakes, Freeborn and Conger is the right things to do. Sure, it would be easy to stammer on about how they should stay open, but the hard viewpoint to take is that the Postal Service is right about closing them.

Mail volume is down. Not only do people send fewer letters, bills and cards than ever by postal mail — thanks to the Internet — but the large amount of advertising mail (i.e. junk mail) that had bolstered the U.S. Postal Service in the electronic age is down, as a result of the recession.

Furthermore, the agency is hamstrung by having to make a $5.5 billion annual payment to prepay retiree health benefits, even though the Postal Service’s inspector general said the agency overpaid about $75 billion between 1972 and 2009. Fat chance getting that money back.

Thus, the postmaster general is looking at closing branch offices and rural post offices. Much of the traffic at these places is for postage stamps, which could be handled in what the Postal Service is calling Village Post Offices, which is placing postal services in libraries, stores and government offices. Some would sell just stamps, while other postal partners would offer packaging services and mailbox services.

Currently the post office operates 31,871 retail outlets across the country, down from 38,000 a decade ago.

The rural stations have low volumes of businesses and some have not much for traffic.

The constitutionally mandated federal agency does not receive tax dollars to fund operations. It is studying 3,653 local offices, branches and stations for possible closing.

We would like it if the small towns had a growing population, but they don’t. As more and more small town businesses shutter for good, so too does the need for small town post offices.

That said, we hope the Postal Service can rethink itself for the 21st century.