By JOSHUA PHILLIPS
Northeast News
July 25, 2013

Since the technology era began and continues to expand, the United States Postal Service (USPS) has experienced losses in revenue, which means post office stations have been closed across the U.S.

USPS has experienced national revenue losses of approximately $25 million a day and post offices have been closed to cut costs. Despite these cuts, USPS is still trying to provide excellent customer service, said USPS Spokesperson Richard Watkins.

USPS is hosting a public forum for the Hardesty post office station, 105 N. Hardesty Ave., Friday, July 26, from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. in regard to whether or not that station will remain open. The forum will be located at the Hardesty Avenue post office. All are invited to attend.

“There has been a significant drop in mail volume, which causes losses in revenue for (USPS),” Watkins said. “There is a tendency that people are not usually in favor of change, but I have been to other public forums and for the most part, people have understood the reasons for moving mailboxes so as to make it still affordable for services.”

If USPS decides to close the Hardesty office, then mailboxes will be transferred to the James Crews station, 2201 E. Truman Road, meaning Northeast residents will have to move their P.O. boxes to the James Crews office. USPS employees at the Hardesty location will also be affected by the possible change. USPS employees will not lose their jobs, but will be able to decide to transfer to the James Crews location or to another post office station in Kansas City, Mo.

Watkins said that across the nation, USPS has moved towards Delivery Unit Optimization (DUO), which closes stations to save on transportation costs. DUO has been primarily used for rural areas to move stations to other neighboring stations to manage one single unit instead of two.

“We want to remove costs from our system, but without stopping effective customer services,” Watkins said. “USPS will keep doing everything we can to cut costs and be efficient with customer service.”

Watkins said that USPS has experienced revenue increases at locations other than the traditional post office locations. The revenue increases have been from selling stamps at places such as grocery stores and ATMs.