According to the Constitution, Congress has the power "to establish post offices and post roads." It is clear from the context that post offices were not considered a business any more than roads were. Nor were they expected to make money. They were and are a service to our society, in the same way that roads are. In the same section of the Constitution (Section 8), Congress was given the power of taxation to pay for these services and the other costs of government.
That is why it is outrageous that today the U.S. Postal Service, which even claims "service" as its last name, is being treated like a business rather than a governmental service. Its management is being forced by Congress to make major cuts in this service, reducing the speed of local mail delivery from one to three days and resulting in the loss of jobs at exactly the time when that is bad for the economy, worse for the country and absolutely devastating for the people whose jobs disappear.
Judging from the Nov. 21 meeting in Asheville on the subject of moving the Brevard Road central processing center from Asheville to Greenville, S.C., 100 percent of the people of this community are totally against this plan. Not a single individual, of the 200 or so who attended, spoke in favor of this move, aside from the Postal Service managers who made the presentation.
We were told that the decision to move is not final and that the Postal Service will truly consider the public reaction to the proposed move. If that is true, there is no way the USPS would approve this move after hearing the comments from the meeting. If the people who they serve mean anything to them, if the future of the Postal Service and of our country means anything to them, the USPS will not approve the move of the Brevard Road distribution facility to Greenville, or any other similar diminution of service elsewhere in the United States.
If you agree, write before Dec. 6 to the Manager, Consumer and Industry Contact U.S. Postal Service, Mid-Carolinas District, 2901 Scott Futrell Drive, Charlotte, NC 28228-9976. Your first-class letter should get there in one day now. If the move goes through, it will take three.
— Fred Flaxman
Weaverville
Why would anyone who supports the closure show up for the meeting? The crowd sentiment was obvious.
Just because the government can provide postal service doesn’t mean it needs to do so in an antiquated way. We don’t need saturday service. We certainly don’t need all the offices—- 1/3 of them produce less than $ 30,000 in revenue PER YEAR, which is almost incomprehensible. Just horribly inefficient and the $ can be used elsewhere.