When It Comes To Commitments,

The USPS Doesn’t Deliver

Last Friday, the US Postal Service notified the Hawleyville Post Office that it must cease operations on February 14. For patrons of the little post office, which has always been modest in appearance and spectacular in its friendly and efficient service, the Valentine’s Day’s surprise seemed sealed with a kiss-off from the USPS, which for years has been trumpeting its commitment to keeping the facility open.

Even as it stonewalled at least two sets of advanced lease negotiations that would have kept postal services in Hawleyville either in a permanent location on Barnabas Road or at its current site in a below-market-rate month-to-month lease pending other lease arrangements, a USPS spokesperson proclaimed, “We are working very hard to make a permanent home for the Hawleyville Post Office.” It was only the most recent glaring example of what Hawleyville postal patrons have learned about official USPS pronouncements over the past three years: the words don’t match up with the actions.

We understand, the postal service is facing the same financial challenges as every other sector of the economy, which is obviously the real reason for its decision to cut and run from Hawleyville. They should simply say as much, make their apologies for dragging out the drama for three years, and do what they wanted to do all along: cut services and costs and consolidate operations at their facility on Commerce Road, where sadder but wiser postal patrons already languish in long lines. There’s a point where most people become immune to USPS cant about commitment and service, and it’s usually at the end of one of these lines.

The shame of it is that many people in Newtown bent over backward to make it possible for Hawleyville to keep its post office. The Housatonic Railroad indicated a willingness to rescind its initial eviction notice to the post office in order to negotiate continued occupancy at favorable rates until the USPS found a permanent home for the facility. A local property owner and developer jumped through paperwork hoops to meet USPS construction requirements for a long-term lease at 23 Barnabas Road. And ordinary postal patrons made phone calls, wrote letters, and lobbied anyway they could to demonstrate continuing local support for the Hawleyville Post Office and its courteous and expert staff. Everyone wanted to make it happen, except apparently the United States Postal Service. We know they say otherwise; it’s just that we don’t believe them anymore.