The Aromas Post Office will remain at the current location and maintain all its services - a victory for citizens in the town of 3,000 people who protested a possible move to a mobile trailer and feared its range of offerings would decline severely.
The Postal Service today announced it had signed a new lease at the 368 Blohm Ave. building and that the location would remain a full-service branch, according to the office of Congressman Sam Farr, D-Carmel.
Residents in the town that includes portions of San Benito, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties had been distressed since the "for sale" sign went up on the post office building just before Christmas. With an owner eager to sell the site and the Postal Service talking of moving, citizens had dreaded the potential of losing much of the current service and ultimately having the local post office close altogether.
The building's owner at first requested to triple the lease, prompting the U.S. Postal Service to start looking for a new location.
The Postal Service initially had intended to move the Aromas site's retail and post office box services to a mobile trailer, while the delivery operation would have been based in Watsonville.
The possibility meant enough to the local citizenry for nearly 10 percent of the population to show up and express concern at a town hall-style meeting in early March with U.S. Postal Service representatives who tried to calm their concerns about the building's sale and speculation about the site closing.
"This is a fantastic resolution and I think all the Postal Service staff members and community supporters who worked so hard to keep this Post Office open," Farr said in the release.
Aromas isn't alone when it comes to anxiety over losing the local post office. More and more post offices across the country - especially rural locations - have been closing in an effort to shave costs and increase efficiency.
Over the past 35 years, the number of postmasters in the U.S. has decreased from about 50,000 to 28,000, said John Gregg, a retired postmaster in the Sacramento area who had been advising Aromas residents in their opposition. Gregg is heading the state effort against such offices' elimination for the National Association of Postmasters.
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