(Host) The United States Postal Service announced Tuesday it will review 3,700 retail locations across the country for closure, including 14 in Vermont.
Tom Rizzo is a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service. He says the problem is that many customers no longer require a physical post office to conduct most of their postal business, and this review is a way to keep the service competitive.
(Rizzo) "For 220 years or so, the postal service was the main conduit for communication and doing business with written documents in the United States. But beginning around the end of the 20th century things started to change, and really there’s been a revolution in the way people communicate. And most of that has to do with the advent of the internet and email."
Rizzo says it’s too soon to say how many postal jobs could be lost in Vermont.
North Thetford is one of the 14 villages whose post office is on the chopping block. Town manager Tig Tillinghast says for people in the tiny village located on the Connecticut River, losing their post office is about more than jobs.
(Tillinghast) "If it were to go away, the center of their village would now move to someone else’s village. So if they’re going to go and have that conversation with their friends and neighbors it’s going to happen in the village of Post Mills or East Thetford. That community is now losing the bits of center that it had so that it’s becoming more of a residential neighborhood and less of a village."
(Host) Other Vermont villages with post offices under review include Rupert, Stockbridge and Florence.
Here is the complete list of villages and postal codes for Vermont:
BEECHER FALLS, 05902
CAMBRIDGEPORT, 05141
EAST RYEGATE, 05042
FLORENCE,05744
GILMAN, 05904
GRANVILLE, 05747
HIGHGATE SPRINGS, 05460
LYMAN, 05001
MC INDOE FALLS, 05050
NORTH THETFORD, 05054
RUPERT, 05768
STOCKBRIDGE, 05772
WEBSTERVILLE, 05678
WEST NEWBURY, 05085
The Postal Service released this state-by-state list of retail locations that could be affected.