Share
Letters protesting the possible closing of the Derita post office apparently arrived at the U.S. Postal Service in bulk.
The Derita station and two others in Charlotte - Freedom and 30th Street - have been removed from a list of five recently considered for closure as the U.S. Postal Service moves to trim costs nationally.
The two other Charlotte locations - 3040 Eastway Drive and 11333 Granite St., near Arrowood Road - are still targets, said Monica Robbs, a Postal Service spokesman.
The Postal Service is expected to lose billions of dollars this year, and officials expect losses to continue. As a result of those projections, the agency announced earlier this year that it might close or consolidate more than 3,000 locations.
Now officials say maintaining an adequate level of service will require keeping open all but about 350 sites, Robbs said.
A decision about which locations will close is still to come, Robbs said.
Residents in northeast Charlotte's Derita community wrote at least 400 letters to Congress and to the Postal Consumer Affairs Office in Charlotte in their most recent effort to save the station at 2505 Derita Ave., according to Bernie Samonds, president of the Derita-Statesville Road Community Organization.
Residents also protested two earlier attempts to close the branch, which opened in 1961, Samonds said.
"With so much of today's commerce, bill paying, and communication being handled over the Internet, you need to remember the huge numbers of folks (who) are not online and still need the postal services," Samonds wrote in an e-mail.
Meeting places for small towns in Mecklenburg have disappeared too frequently, said Fabius "F.E." McKee, whose family business has maintained a post office box at the Derita station for at least 45 years.
The post office in Derita gives residents there a sense of community, McFee said.
"If I was going downtown to the post office on McDowell (Street), it's got a different feel to it," he said. "It's more commercialized (at McDowell)."
McKee was among those who wrote to U.S. Rep. Mel Watt to protest plans to close the station, which he visits at least three times a week.
"To lose the post office just because the people that are running it now are looking at ways to cut the budget would be a difficult loss," he said. "Once they're gone, they're generally gone. I knew in this case we needed to save it."
The Postal Service has seen a steady decline in traffic in recent years as consumers turn to services such as e-mail and online bill paying.
Newer postal services let customers mail packages from home or other locations. Yet those options have diverted traffic from retail sites, Robbs said.
"Our goals for quality service to our customers include providing convenient access to services such as post office box rental, retail services for purchasing stamps and other postal products," Robbs said. "Those services are being provided through several means that are not necessarily in traditional post office lobbies."
