Endangered post offices

Saturday, Aug. 8, 2009 | 2:08 a.m.

As late as the mid-1990s most of us regarded the U.S. Postal Service as an almost-daily necessity. Today, unless we want to send a package, we rarely regard it. The online world’s speed and convenience has relegated the mailbox to the back of our minds.

But the overwhelmingly popular choice of clicking instead of licking (a stamp) is helping to drive the Postal Service into such debt that major service cuts are being proposed.

Federal law requires the Postal Service to be self-sufficient through the sale of stamps. But at its current size — 34,000 locations across the country — that is not possible anymore. The Postal Service is losing billions of dollars a year with little hope of seeing stamp sales do anything but continue to plunge.

“The trend of letter mail and business transactions being replaced with electronic alternatives will cause continued downward pressure on mail volume into coming years,” the Postal Service said this week in a news release.

Customers have had a choice about their neighborhood post office — use it or lose it. Collectively that choice was made, but many people are upset with the harsh reality.

Las Vegas Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian on Monday led a rally to protest a Postal Service announcement that a post office in her ward might close along with four others in the area.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Tuesday met with the postmaster general and then announced a new plan for Las Vegas — one post office here will be considered for consolidation. The others will be saved.

This is good news for Las Vegas, but how long it can last is a question. At some point, people are going to have to understand that even intervention by their local and federal representatives can’t save post offices that are not doing enough business. We’re going to have to accept that our own choices are threatening our beloved but endangered neighborhood post offices.