Dugas: Revenue’s tanking.
Some 50 fans of the endangered Amity branch on Whalley Avenue drove to a hearing to save it from the chopping block — and drove home that point.
The Amity branch is one of three in New Haven under consideration for closure by the United States Postal Service, which is bleeding money.
Fans of the other branches — Kilby in the Hill, and one on Fountain Street in Westville — have emphasized that older people and those without cars need a local branch they can walk to. Fans of Kilby made that case at a Tuesday night meeting.
The pitch was different Wednesday night at the latest postal service hearing on planned branch closures. This hearing, at the main Brewery Street facility, concerned the Amity branch, along a heavily-traveled stretch of Whalley near the Woodbridge border and the Merritt/Wilbur Cross Parkway.
Speakers Wednesday night said they’re not happy about losing a convenient roadside branch with ample parking. They weren’t happy about the meeting’s location, either.
“How many people that go to that post office could not be here tonight?” asked Michael Dennehy, vice-president of the Connecticut Postal Workers’ Union, to strong applause from the audience. He was one of 15 who spoke in front of postal service officials, a few of whom accused them of deliberately choosing the main post office on Brewery Street as a meeting place to discourage people from attending.
The Kilby branch in the Hill has parking too. But the lot is small and most customers walk. Amity has more spaces. It’s located en route to many workplaces, said those who testified.
“Do you really expect me to drive over to Westville [nearby on Fountain Street] where I can’t even park?” asked one speaker.
Constance Ecklund of Woodbridge.
He was referring to the contingency plan for the 400 or so P.O. boxes housed at Amity, about half of which are actually rented by customers. Those boxes would probably move to Fountain Street post office branch on Fountain Street if Amity closed.
If both the Westville/Fountain and Amity branches were to close, the P.O. boxes they house would be moved to “another location,” New Haven Postmaster Elvin Mercado said without being more specific.
Susan Jacobs said Amity post office has “the best postal clerks in the world.” But the real reason she can’t live without, she said: It has good parking.
Sanford Levine of Woodbridge.
At the meeting, people challenged the reasons the Postal Service was considering the Amity branch: decreased customer visits; decrease in number of customer transactions; and proximity of alternate access offices.
“Those are completely anomalous statistics,” said Katharine Weber, given the extraordinarily snowy winter last year and continuing traffic and construction on Whalley Avenue.
Mercado and Christine Dugas, a USPS spokesperson, said revenue has been going down at the branch. In 2008 it was a little over $1 million; last year it was about $886,000.
They said the four employees at the office would be relocated to other branches. Nobody would lose a P.O. box number, Mercado emphasized. Address and zip code stay exactly the same as long as you’re willing to use the post office where your box would be relocated.
The two branches are among 35 others in the state and 3,700 nationally out of a total of 32,000 offices that are the subject of what the postal service calls “a discontinuance feasibility study.” The postal service has been bleeding money, facing possible bankruptcy in the age of email.
Christine Williams, New Haven post office’s manager of customer service operations, with Elvin Mercado.
Mercado and Dugas stressed that there haven’t been any decisions yet. (All three branches were studied for closure two years ago.) The comments made Wednesday night are to be sent to the USPS headquarters in D.C., where a national commission will study them and eventually issue a final recommendation.
A public meeting has yet to be held about the branch on Fountain Street in Westville. Mercado said his office will figure out a time and location soon. If possible, he said, he will try to hold it somewhere more convenient for Westville neighbors.
“We’re under very tight timelines,” he said. And the Brewery Street location has its advantages. “It’s our building. It’s free.”
And of course, he added, “we have parking.”
Susan Jacobs thinks the Amity post office has “the best postal clerks in the world.” But the real reason she can’t live without: It has good parking.
Most residents in New Haven do not drive to work every day. What about them? Close the stations that are less accessible to transit. The Hill and Fountain Street stations are both reachable by multiple bus lines and walking. The Amity station is for drivers only. Close it.