Por Dave Schwab
So why are the North Park post office at 3791 Grim Ave. and the George Washington post office in Golden Hill at 2692 C St. being targeted for possible termination?
Claiming it’s unjustified, North Park and Golden Hill residents are rising against the Postal Service proposal to close their neighborhood branches. And so far, they’ve got at least two local elected officials — 4th District County Supervisor Ron Roberts and 53rd District Congresswoman Susan Davis — in their corner.
“These post offices are an integral part of the community,” said Davis. “These closures would inordinately affect the elderly and people with disabilities. I understand the USPS is in financial straits, but closures are a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I will continue to work with the USPS and local communities to keep these offices open.”
Five post offices in Davis’ congressional district were targeted for possible shuttering, including Oak Park, Point Loma and University City. Only North Park and Golden Hill remain on the Postal Service’s potential closure list.
Roberts said closing the two mid-city post offices isn’t wise, and should be reconsidered. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to make people drive to a location some distance away when they’re in walkable areas that have good densities,” he said. “The whole concept of smart growth and community planning is sort of tossed on its head if we were to ignore these post offices that are really providing a service in the neighborhoods.”
Besides contacting elected officials, residents and businesses in North Park and Golden Hill have begun letter writing campaigns to local community planners and anybody else who will listen, urging that their post offices not be closed. There’s even talk of hanging out banners publicly protesting the possible closures.
Saving the local post offices has also gathered another adherent, North Park Main Street, the community’s Business improvement District. “North Park is an area where the residential density is increasing with new development going on,” said Elizabeth Studebaker, the district’s executive director. “To close these post offices down in the middle of an emerging community is not a good business move for the federal government. A public post office is an attractive feature for any business considering moving here. It’s bad for the neighborhood and bad for business to have a post office close.”
What would it take to save the two post offices? It’s a question being asked by people like businesswoman Tershia d’Elgin, and Sherman Heights resident Remy Bermúdez.
D’Elgin feels closing the George Washington branch would defeat the whole aim of local planning. “I and many other Golden Hill neighbors are working to make our community more walkable, and taking away this post office would be counterproductive,” she said. “It’s a very pedestrian-heavy neighborhood. A lot of people rely on public transportation and will have problems getting elsewhere.”
D’Elgin said removing the post office would be a real “disconnect” for the community. “It’s part of the identity,” she said. “It also keeps it walkable. There’s value in having a well-connected
community, to know people you’re doing business with are watching out for you.”
Bermúdez feels closing the Golden Hill post office would disenfranchise the community. “We need it open because it serves not just Golden Hill but Sherman Heights and part of South Park,” she said, adding if the post office is closed, people will have to go as far as 40 blocks east to Encanto to be served. “It will compromise the elderly and a lot of parents with children, many that don’t have cars. To take the post office away from our community is a disservice.”
There are other reasons as well for opposing George Washington’s closure. “There is a feeling of discrimination because so many of the residents are not English speaking,” said d’Elgin, who added many residents did not receive notice that their post offices were being considered for closure. “It sends a message: We don’t really care.”
Closing down the George Washington post office doesn’t make sense without considering other options, said post office landlord Renee Parks. She owns the building housing the post office in Golden Hill and has leased it to the Postal Service for $8,000 a month for the past 10 years. While admitting she has a vested interest in seeing the George Washington office stay open, Parks said the federal government ought to look at alternative ways to make it economically viable before, or instead of, just shutting it down.
“They should think about combining it with another business, just lease it out so these post offices can make more money,” she said, suggesting they might try leasing it to a similar business such as UPS or FedEx.
Shutting postal branches is a national trend: 677 out of 3,600 have been closed thus far. It’s a consequence of the recession and a sign of changing times, said Eva Jackson, communications program specialist for the U.S. Postal Service San Diego District.
Jackson noted there’s been a significant change in postal customers’ behavior. “People don’t write letters anymore, they send e-mail,” she said. “We’re losing an art form. They’re not going into post offices. People are getting their stamps at grocery stores, using our Web site or kiosks.”
Jackson said a number of factors are considered with post office closures, one of the most important being how close they are to others in the surrounding area. In North Park’s case, there are two other post offices less than two miles away — Hillcrest at 1.5 miles, located at 3911 Cleveland Ave., and John Adams post office in Normal Heights about 1.4 miles away at 3288 Adams Ave. The Mission Valley Postal Store at 1640 Camino Del Rio North is about three miles away. Jackson added Golden Hill’s post office is also near Hillcrest, as well as the downtown San Diego post office at 815 E St., and the Southeastern post office in Logan Heights at 2777 Logan Ave.
Alternative postal access is a trend the Postal Service is encouraging, said Jackson, noting customers aren’t aware they can have packages sent or delivered via www.usps.com. “They can go on the Web site, pay for their package through flat-rate express mail and we’ll deliver it or pick it up from your door,” she said. “You never have to leave the house, go to the post office, to mail a package. It keeps people from getting in their cars, using gas, possibly standing in long lines. It’s very convenient.”
Mail, like a lot of other things, is going electronic. Said Jackson: “Electronic diversion has been happening for a little while and all of a sudden the economy dropped out from under us. People don’t have the budget to do advertising. We’ve not only lost first-class mail to electronic diversion, we’ve lost a lot of our bulk business.”
The federal post office is at another disadvantage: It doesn’t get tax dollars. “We pay for ourselves based on what people are mailing,” Jackson said. “Without that we’re hurting, cutting back on employees, offering early retirement, cutting work hours. We’re trying to make some good business choices and are doing what we can.”
The good news is, said Jackson, that the closure of the North Park and Golden Hill post offices is far from a done deal. It could be stopped. Others have been. “We are still in the review process of collecting customers’ input,” she said. “After that, it will go to our Pacific area office here in San Diego, which oversees all of California, Hawaii, American Samoa and Guam. If they feel the (closure) review should continue, then it will be forwarded to postal headquarters in Washington, D.C.”
How long is that going to take? “Nothing will happen before the holidays,” said Jackson.
Dave Schwab has been a journalist in San Diego County for more than 20 years and has worked on several publications including the San Diego Business Journal and the La Jolla Light. He resides in North Park and may be contacted at: [email protected].
————————————————–
Breakout box with distances between post offices:
Distances from post offices slated for closure to other nearby post offices
From North Park post office to:
Normal Heights post office: 1.42 miles (about 13 blocks)
City Heights post office: 1.49 miles (about 23 blocks)
Hillcrest post office: 1.55 miles (about 21 blocks)
Mission Valley post office: 2.78 miles (about 12 blocks)
Downtown San Diego post office: 3.46 miles (about 38 blocks)
Logan Heights post office: 4.55 miles (about 51 blocks)
Encanto post office: 7.07 miles (about 81 blocks)
From Golden Hill post office to:
Downtown San Diego post office: 1.53 miles (about 23 blocks)
Logan Heights post office: 1.55 miles (about 18 blocks)
Hillcrest post office: 3.64 miles (about 38 blocks)
City Heights post office: 4.49 miles (about 52 blocks)
Normal Heights post office: 4.78 miles (about 55 blocks)
Encanto post office: 4.79 miles (about 45 blocks)
Mission Valley post office: 4.94 miles (about 52 blocks)
Distances calculated using mapquest.com, using surface street routes.
