Your Corner Mailbox Could Be Stamped Out

(CBS)  The U.S. Postal Service announced last week that it is on a pace to lose $7 billion this year, mainly because of the recession and the continued movement of letters and bills to e-mail. To save money, hundreds of post offices could be shuttered, and mail delivery could be cut to five days a week. And that's not all. CBS News correspondent Bianca Solorzano reports that familiar blue mailbox on your corner may be going the way of the pay telephone - gone.

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In Otisfield, Maine, a town so small that it doesn't even have its own zip code, the decision by the U.S. Postal Service to remove its lone blue mail box hit Town Clerk Sharon Matthews personally.

"You know, we don't have a lot, but what we have we want to keep," Matthews said.

The mailbox sits outside the Town Office on Otisfield's main road - State Route 121. The nearest post office is an inconvenient, 4-mile drive to the next town.

"We took a stand," Matthews said.

Residents stood and complained after a white notice taped to the mailbox last month announced it would be removed in 10 days.

"No heads up at all," Matthews said.

The reason? Not enough letters. Any mailbox averaging fewer than 25 pieces a day is stamped for removal.

And it's not just in small towns. Here in Allentown, Pa., the state's third largest city, and across the nation, about half of these mailboxes have been removed in just the last four years.

Historian Joe Garrera says the blue mailbox, around since 1850, is becoming an antique.

"We don't send letters, we don't write letters like we used to," said Garrera, the executive director of the Lehigh Valley Heritage Museum.

Blame e-mail. The Postal Service certainly does. But Garrera says the loss is not only in postal revenue.

"Historians rely on letters and diaries to reconstruct the past," Garrera said. "And one of the things that we bemoan about is the fact that these letters are not going to exist in the future."

At Allentown's central post office, its boiler room is becoming a mailbox morgue. Boxes that have seen their "last collection" day are gathering dust, waiting to be scrapped.

"Same as any other corporation out there or business, we're trying to reduce our cost to better other areas of the postal service," said Mario DiPatrizio, the postmaster in Allentown.

That cost saving argument was a hard sell in Otisfield. On the day we visited, the daily pickup took less than 60 seconds. There were about 50 letters, and that's enough - along with the outcry - for Otisfield's blue mailbox to get a reprieve, for now.

"We just really thought we should stand for our rights and not just be mowed over, saying, 'You don't count,'" Matthews said.

Counting the letters - until they stop coming.

[devilfly1]

Unbelievable!

At least, we could save some bucks!

Stamp Free.

Use e-mails from now. We can save our tears and tissues.

[RCinOK]

Some of you have said the USPS needs to change, or should have seen this coming, and so on. The USPS did see this coming 20 years ago. The USPS talked about getting into the email business in the early 90's but was prohibited from doing so by Congress. Congress is being hypocritical about the USPS. On the one hand it requires it to run like a private company, but on the other hand it doesn't allow it to run like one. There are 30,000 post offices in the US. At least 10,000 of them don't even break even. No private company would keep them open, but you try and close one and see how many Senators and Congerssmen you have on your case.

The USPS is required, by law, to deliver to every address in this country 6 days a week. From NYC to the Alaskan out back. Contrary to popular belief neither UPS nor Fedex delivers to every address in the US. Being private companies they can "cherry pick" who they do, and do not, deliver to. It's a little known fact that the USPS delivers hundred of millions of packages every year for UPS, Fedex, DHL and others. You require UPS and Fedex to deliver to every address in the US 6 days a week and see if they make a profit. Which is why, despite some of the comments on here, UPS and Fedex, nor anybody else, would want the USPS's responsibilities. The USPS moves more pieces of mail, in one day, than UPS and Fedex do combined in a year.

Whether you like it or not there are still tens of millions of people dependent upon the USPS. Either they are behind the technology curve, or can't afford computer/internet access. Until the government puts a computer and high speed access into every home, people will still depend on mail. And you can just imagine how much it would cost to provide all of those people with a computer and dsl.

Several countries in Europe, I think its around 12, have tried privatizing their postal services. In all but 2 instances it has failed. Either the companies that held the contracts went broke, or dumped the problem back onto the governments. In Germany, one of the two places privatization has succeeded, the cost to mail a letter is $1. If it costs $1 to mail something from one side of Germany to another, just imagine what it would cost to send something from Florida to California.

The USPS is not a private company. It is a governmental agency just like the USDA or Corps of Engineers. The only difference between the USPS and other federal agencies is that it is the only one that's required to fund itself. If other government agencies were required to do that it would cost you $50 a person to get into Yellowstone park.

[MarcLacroix]

UPS, Fedex and DHL have all been asking for the right to deliver letters. So why not tlet them? If they do it better, then great! Let them gobble up the market share until the USPS is gone. And if it doesn't work, then so be it, the USPS will still be alive, and able pick up the slack.

The fact the USPS straddles the private industry-public entity line is even more reason to privatize it.

As for the email debate, thank goodness the USPS was never allowed to get into that! It is loosing market, and unlike a private company, doesn't know how to contract wisely. Finally it is starting to.

And the remote people that "rely" on the USPS? If it goes away, they will quickly adapt, and get computers, and that will be that. They haven't yet only becasue they haven't needed to.

[rhs648]

When I was a child living in upstate New York, we received mail in the morning and in the afternoon. My mother could mail me a note from work in the morning and I would receive it after school in the afternoon. Not too many people remember twice a day delivery. Postage was around 4 cents. Ironically, this was done without automation. Just a little bit of history.

[jackp32]

Turn the operation over to private enterprise. They will straighten it out.

[YCantWeAllGetAlong]

The USPS is operating on an antique business model. They have not moved with the times at all and are adrift with inadequacy. They need to find someone modern and motivated to stop this. It may already be too late. They should have done away with Saturday delivery eons ago. As far as mailboxes? Um, every home gets free pick up of mail. They should have post office boxes at the post office outside for convenience and everyone can either wait until the next day, drive to a post office and hand deliver it and learn to cope. You will be OK without the mailboxes.

[cs4466]

Postal employees should be required to run three miles every morning.

I think you'd see a quick changeover to competent staff if that were a requirement.

[RCinOK]

I bet more of them could do it than you, and most of the people in this country could. Most mail carriers walk 12 to 15 miles a day, with 35 pounds on mail in a bag over their shoulder, sometimes in temperatures over 95+ degrees. I would love to see you do that. You'd be crying for your mommie within an hour.

[kurlikew]

I haven't seen a blue corner mailbox anywhere in any of the areas I've lived in over the past few years, so this doesn't come as any big surprise. :o\

[arizona9149]

My question is I thought the United States Post Office isnt owned by the federal goverment.

[ralphpal1]

WEll it actually does a great job. Unlike alot of companies it doesnt take your tax dollars not one red cent. Also the post office is not allowed to make a profit so when they were making billions of dollars in the late 90s that anything above that went to the govt. Some went to pay down they debt but whatever they dont spend the govt takes it for they budget. What company could be sucessful if they not allowed to make a profit. Whereever you go you have to wait online dano what store, bank or etc do you go to where you never have to wait on line i would love to shop there

[Mac]

And this same government plans to run our health care. Unbelievable. Clearly, they have lost sight of the founders belief in minimum government and maximum freedom.