Earlier this month, I visited with Diana, a 71 year old great-grandmother of 13 and retired Postmaster for the Tiller Post Office. I first talked with Diana in December when ROP was coordinating Occupy Our Post Offices – a statewide day of action for rural post offices. Diana was organizing a rally in Tiller before ROP contacted her and she was thrilled to hear that we were connecting the dots to Occupy!
As we drank coffee in a small café in Canyonville, Diana told me story after story about how important her role as a Postmaster was to the community of Tiller. She helped residents balance their checkbooks, file their taxes, and fill out money orders to pay their bills. If she noticed mail piling up, she would visit homes to make sure everything was okay. It is this consideration and care that led Diana to save several lives of Tiller residents who lived alone and had suffered strokes and aneurisms.
It is only natural that Diana decided to organize her community to fight the closure of their post office – she knows firsthand how vital the post office is to community health! This is why Diana was one of several rural Postmasters that led delegations to Congressional offices on Wednesday, February 22nd with over 1,600 petition signatures calling on Congress to save rural post offices and processing facilities.
The 1,600+ signatures from across Oregon were delivered to the district offices for Representatives Schrader, Walden, DeFazio, Bonamici and Blumenauer and Senators Wyden and Merkley. Read the cover letter that breaks down the issue for Congress below!
Delivery delegations consisted of rural residents fighting closures in their own towns, ROP member groups dedicated to conserving community infrastructure in rural Oregon, postal workers and retired rural Postmasters, and members of five unions taking strong stances against destroying rural community infrastructure (National Rural Letter Carriers’ Union, National Association of Letter Carriers, American Postal Workers Union, NAPUS, and AFL-CIO).
Most delegations found Congressional aides educated and engaged in the fight to save rural post offices from the sheer amount of letters, calls, and emails they have been receiving. Congressional offices received our stack of petition signatures with enthusiasm, with the exception of Congressman Walden’s Bend office.
Walden’s Bend office canceled the appointment made weeks in advance with less than 24-hours notice. The doors to the office were locked on the 22nd as activists distributed flyers to educate the public on the manufactured financial crisis that is meant to cripple the USPS. When Walden’s aides returned the next day, they shared they just learned that UPS, FedEx, and DHL do not deliver to rural locations – a fact community advocates have been stressing to Walden for months now.
With the announcement of the decision to close our postal processing facilities in Bend, Pendleton, Salem, and Springfield, we must begin rallying our communities to keep Congress’ feet to the fire.
The ruckus we raised in December spared 20 rural post offices and bought us a moratorium on post office closures until May 15th. Now legislation sponsored by Oregon’s own Rep. DeFazio addresses the core issues of this manufactured crisis – it proposes fixing the prefunding of retiree benefits. It specifically protects rural post offices and preserves processing facilities. Call your member of Congress and urge them to support S. 1853 and H.R. 3591! Learn more about this legislation from our friends at the National Association of Letter Carriers!
Be sure to join us on Saturday, May 12th for the Rural Caucus and Strategy Session where we will be discussing next steps in the fight for rural post offices. Register today!
Here is the letter that accompanied the 1,600 petition signatures:
Dear Congress,
Hundreds of rural Oregonians have publicly spoken: we want our rural post offices and community infrastructure to remain intact and as-is!
The proposed closures of rural post offices and processing facilities resulted from a manufactured financial crisis that Congress created by passing the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) in 2006. Championed by many as the first step toward privatizing the United States Postal Service for corporate profit, PAEA forced the USPS to prefund retiree benefits for 75 years in advance. Furthermore, this served as a blow to the largest unions for workers rights in the country. This country cannot afford to lay off 220,000 workers.
We, as Oregonians, do not want to see crucial services severed to serve the agenda of corporations that have no stake in our communities.
Rural communities depend on their post offices. Many towns will be erased from the Oregon map without their post offices, as will their economies once their small businesses shut their doors without accessible post offices. Our communities will not see the profits corporations will make while our highly skilled postal workers and valued community members lose their employment. Many of our neighbors do not have door-to-door delivery and cannot drive the distance to the next nearest post office; many more cannot afford to.
We call on you to fix the USPS’ manufactured financial crisis and to publicly represent the dozens of rural communities and thousands of rural Oregonians who are at risk of losing their identity.
This petition began circulating on December 19, when 23 communities across Oregon Occupied their Post Offices to make our voices heard loud and clear: we USE and we OCCUPY our Post Offices! Fort Klamath – population 88, Juntura – population 109, and many other small towns Occupied together because it is our togetherness that will see us through. This petition was circulated in urban cities, online, and in many General Stores in rural Oregon. Oregon is united in this fight. Join us.
Earlier this month, I visited with Diana, a 71 year old great-grandmother of 13 and retired Postmaster for the Tiller Post Office. I first talked with Diana in December when ROP was coordinating Occupy Our Post Offices – a statewide day of action for rural post offices. Diana was organizing a rally in Tiller before ROP contacted her and she was thrilled to hear that we were connecting the dots to Occupy!
As we drank coffee in a small café in Canyonville, Diana told me story after story about how important her role as a Postmaster was to the community of Tiller. She helped residents balance their checkbooks, file their taxes, and fill out money orders to pay their bills. If she noticed mail piling up, she would visit homes to make sure everything was okay. It is this consideration and care that led Diana to save several lives of Tiller residents who lived alone and had suffered strokes and aneurisms.
It is only natural that Diana decided to organize her community to fight the closure of their post office – she knows firsthand how vital the post office is to community health! This is why Diana was one of several rural Postmasters that led delegations to Congressional offices on Wednesday, February 22nd with over 1,600 petition signatures calling on Congress to save rural post offices and processing facilities.
The 1,600+ signatures from across Oregon were delivered to the district offices for Representatives Schrader, Walden, DeFazio, Bonamici and Blumenauer and Senators Wyden and Merkley. Read the cover letter that breaks down the issue for Congress below!
Delivery delegations consisted of rural residents fighting closures in their own towns, ROP member groups dedicated to conserving community infrastructure in rural Oregon, postal workers and retired rural Postmasters, and members of five unions taking strong stances against destroying rural community infrastructure (National Rural Letter Carriers’ Union, National Association of Letter Carriers, American Postal Workers Union, NAPUS, and AFL-CIO).
Most delegations found Congressional aides educated and engaged in the fight to save rural post offices from the sheer amount of letters, calls, and emails they have been receiving. Congressional offices received our stack of petition signatures with enthusiasm, with the exception of Congressman Walden’s Bend office.
Walden’s Bend office canceled the appointment made weeks in advance with less than 24-hours notice. The doors to the office were locked on the 22nd as activists distributed flyers to educate the public on the manufactured financial crisis that is meant to cripple the USPS. When Walden’s aides returned the next day, they shared they just learned that UPS, FedEx, and DHL do not deliver to rural locations – a fact community advocates have been stressing to Walden for months now.
With the announcement of the decision to close our postal processing facilities in Bend, Pendleton, Salem, and Springfield, we must begin rallying our communities to keep Congress’ feet to the fire.
The ruckus we raised in December spared 20 rural post offices and bought us a moratorium on post office closures until May 15th. Now legislation sponsored by Oregon’s own Rep. DeFazio addresses the core issues of this manufactured crisis – it proposes fixing the prefunding of retiree benefits. It specifically protects rural post offices and preserves processing facilities. Call your member of Congress and urge them to support S. 1853 and H.R. 3591! Learn more about this legislation from our friends at the National Association of Letter Carriers!
Be sure to join us on Saturday, May 12th for the Rural Caucus and Strategy Session where we will be discussing next steps in the fight for rural post offices. Register today!
Here is the letter that accompanied the 1,600 petition signatures:
Dear Congress,
Hundreds of rural Oregonians have publicly spoken: we want our rural post offices and community infrastructure to remain intact and as-is!
The proposed closures of rural post offices and processing facilities resulted from a manufactured financial crisis that Congress created by passing the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) in 2006. Championed by many as the first step toward privatizing the United States Postal Service for corporate profit, PAEA forced the USPS to prefund retiree benefits for 75 years in advance. Furthermore, this served as a blow to the largest unions for workers rights in the country. This country cannot afford to lay off 220,000 workers.
We, as Oregonians, do not want to see crucial services severed to serve the agenda of corporations that have no stake in our communities.
Rural communities depend on their post offices. Many towns will be erased from the Oregon map without their post offices, as will their economies once their small businesses shut their doors without accessible post offices. Our communities will not see the profits corporations will make while our highly skilled postal workers and valued community members lose their employment. Many of our neighbors do not have door-to-door delivery and cannot drive the distance to the next nearest post office; many more cannot afford to.
We call on you to fix the USPS’ manufactured financial crisis and to publicly represent the dozens of rural communities and thousands of rural Oregonians who are at risk of losing their identity.
This petition began circulating on December 19, when 23 communities across Oregon Occupied their Post Offices to make our voices heard loud and clear: we USE and we OCCUPY our Post Offices! Fort Klamath – population 88, Juntura – population 109, and many other small towns Occupied together because it is our togetherness that will see us through. This petition was circulated in urban cities, online, and in many General Stores in rural Oregon. Oregon is united in this fight.