Return to Sender - Part 3

In the final installment of "Return To Sender" more on what is being done to help keep some rural Montana facilities open.

The U. S. Postal Service announced in August last year it was considering closing hundreds of post offices across the nation, 85 of them here in Montana. In December postal officials said any final decision would be delayed until May. Postal Service Spokesman Peter Nowacki says, "We just agreed with some members of Congress that it might be best to have a little cooling time. Let Congress take a look at the issue and see if they can come up with some more comprehensive reform of the entire system."

Senator Jon Tester says , "What we asked the Post Master General to do is back off.  Let Congress come up with a solution.  The ball is in our court. We have gotta come up with a solution.  If we don't we've got nobody to blame but ourselves."

Senator Jon Tester says he will continue to push for the post offices that many residents of these rural communities simply cannot do without.

"In these small post office cases the closure of them. Many of the residents in rural communities are gonna have to drive a long ways to get to their mail. Most of these folks I shouldn't say most but a good portion are elderly folks who depend on it for prescription drugs. I just think it's the wrong thing to do," says Tester.

Pete Nowacki says there are still efforts underway to maintain some aspects of service.  

“Keep in mind that in some of those cases we may be able to replace some of those services by partnering with a local business to provide some of the mailing services like stamp sales, certain kinds of package services," says Nowacki.

That brings the situation full circle because even with these potential changes, the USPS will still need to sell postage services and other revenue builders. In the end, it's the same residents who face losing their post office who help keep those services running.

"I guess the biggest thing from people talking about it is they just feel the Postal Service doesn’t care about how they feel. It's like if you don't wanna come service us, we don't have to give you our money," says Toston Post Mistress Gail Bruchez.

Story by Drew Steele, Beartooth NBC.
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