The EMU could soon lose its post office, according to a letter sent to the head of the local postal workers’ union.
The US Postal Service is considering 740 locations for closure or consolidation because of declining mail volume. A letter from the post office’s district manager Kim Anderson to Jim Kubli of the Eugene Area Local of the American Postal Workers Union indicates that the University Station post office is among them.
The letter prompted checkers at the University Station post office to erect a sign on Thursday exhorting customers to save the post office by calling U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio.
Jan Lariviere, wife of University President Richard Lariviere, was one of those customers Friday and she said it was the first she had heard about the situation and that she and the University president would likely try to “go to bat” for the post office.
If the post office were closed, students would need to use one of USPS’s other Eugene locations for their mailing, which the president’s wife said are “too far” away.
On Friday, DeFazio staffers said the congressman had received only one phone call regarding the possible closure.
The EMU has contained a post office since it was built in 1950. It was the only post office east of Ferry Street, serving nearly 20,000 Eugene residents, and causing massive traffic on campus until 1963, when the Postal Service built a branch on E. 13th Avenue and Columbia Street.
Post office clerks denied that mail volume has dropped. Postal Service representatives did not return phone calls from the Emerald.
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