Dear Editor:
A strong community requires that quality civic institutions function. That is why it is so troubling to learn that the United States Postal Service is considering closing as many as nine Post Office branches in communities throughout Hudson County.
This decision, if carried out, would be a great blow to these communities.
Consider the Post Office branch on West Side Avenue in Jersey City – hundreds of seniors and individuals getting by on fixed incomes rely on this branch. It provides outstanding, convenient service for merchants and small business people who can’t shut down a store for a long time to get into a car and drive out of the area to take care of postal-related business needs.
The Five Corners Branch further uptown on the edge of Journal Square provides the same value to neighbors, many of whom rely on local shops, local doctors and yes, the local post office, to live their lives without driving or owning a car.
The same can be said for branches in Weehawken, Hoboken, Union City and North Bergen.
We are enduring difficult economic times. Those times do demand of us in government to make tough choices. But tough choices also ought to be smart choices. Making more people get into their cars, or get on busses or rely on family members to handle their post office-related needs is not a smart choice. It will put more people in cars on traffic jammed streets in Hoboken, it will deny seniors and people on fixed incomes easy access to postal service in Jersey City and North Hudson, and it will hurt all our small business.
Yes, “a penny saved is a penny earned,” but maybe the more valuable proverb for the Postal Service to live by right now is not to be “penny-wise and pound foolish.” Reducing their physical presence in older, more densely populated urban communities where reliance on online technology is lower and demand for local service is greater isn’t wise economy, it is shirking their duty.
Sincerely,
Tom DeGise
Hudson County Executive