All politics is said to be local. Just ask the citizens of
Aromas, who are now personally feeling the philosophic winds long
blowing through Washington, D.C.
All politics is said to be local. Just ask the citizens of Aromas, who are now personally feeling the philosophic winds long blowing through Washington, D.C.
The local post office is in danger of being closed.
In a community straddling three county lines, the brick building has served as a vital meeting place since its opening in 1964. But in 1971, the U.S. Postal Department was cut off from taxpayer funding, recast as a business, and told to go forth and earn its living.
The postmaster general is now titled a CEO. USPS publications sparkle with “streamlined,” “efficient,” “dynamic” and the rest of the business school vocabulary.
We’ve all seen this shimmering vision of assembly-line speed and profitability come to shocking life in the factory feel of our health care system. We see it in No Child Left Behind’s treatment of children as containers to be filled, tested, shipped out, or sent back.
At the same time that Richard Nixon was cutting costs by removing the postal department from his budget, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan was lightening his by emptying the state’s mental institutions in favor of “efficient,” close-to-home treatment centers – which were never funded, kick-starting California’s homelessness problem.
Applying the business model where it doesn’t belong is disastrous. Yet politicians bought Big Business’s demonization of taxes and regulation, then resold it to the general public. It wasn’t hard to do. The appeal to selfishness is an easy sell, much easier than altruism.
The local result? Aromas School’s students in leaking portables due to the failure of a 2006 school bond. San Juan Bautista’s city services cut after voters rejected a sales tax increase last November. The 2005 closing of libraries in Salinas.
Blue Cross can turn you away for a pre-existing condition, but the USPS is mandated to provide universal service. Something had to go when the business model was superimposed on it. Part of what went were 25,000 post offices over the past 35 years.
The USPS leases its building in Aromas, a building the owner wants to sell. At a packed public meeting March 2 in the Aromas Grange, a USPS envoy disavowed any plans for a closing. The community isn’t buying it, for many reasons. His claim that the rent for the site had quadrupled was contradicted by the owner’s real estate agent. Though the asking price is low, he showed no interest in buying. Though it was confirmed that this office loses money, he went through verbal contortions to avoid saying so, no doubt because the U. S. Code specifically prohibits the USPS from closing rural post offices simply because they’re unprofitable – a right protecting the weak from the business model.
USPS raises are based on bottom-line performance. Though profit is clearly the goal, another justification must be found for a closing: A retiring postmaster, insufficient space, safety concerns … or a problem with the lease. The “For Sale” sign in Aromas gave the USPS the perfect excuse for getting rid of another office. The plan to reassign routes to Watsonville is a classic first step toward closing. Ominously, the well-respected local postmaster has been reassigned as well.
The Iraq War seems distant until a local soldier is killed. The same is true of the war on public services. San Benito County Supervisor Anthony Botelho stood up at the meeting, declared that he was a business-minded Republican, then mused aloud that something like the post office ought to be supported whether it’s profitable or not. You could practically see the light go on in his head.
Paul Fleischman is an Aromas resident.
