Maplewood Residents Respond: Keep Our Post Office

Terry Ryan and her husband, a pastor at a Maplewood church, have one car that they spend $25 a month on gas on. They chose to live in Maplewood because it’s a community they could walk everywhere in.

“We walk to work, we walk to school, we walk to the shops, we walk to the post office,” she said.

Ryan was one of about 70 people who filled the city council chambers at on Tuesday afternoon at a meeting to tell the St. Louis postmaster that they want all their post office services to remain. In order to save about $165,000, the U.S. Postal Service is considering closing the counter retail portion of the .

Part of the process to decide if a branch is to be closed is to hold a public comment meeting. The Maplewood addresses, with the 63143 zip code would remain, along with delivery, serviced through the current building.

Larry Diegel, postmaster of St. Louis, laid out the case.

The move toward electronic bill payments, e-cards, and electronic communication is general, in addition to the current economic environment, are factors working against post offices. In 2009, two million customers visited St. Louis post offices (an all-time high). Three years later the number is down to 1.7 million.

There was not a shortage of Maplewood postal costumers waiting to express their opinion when Diegel was finished. Two things kept coming up: the walkability of the Maplewood community and the friendliness of the post office staff.

Ryan said that about 20 percent of her husband’s congregation is mentally or physically ill. “They use the post office,” she said. “They find the staff amazing, and understand them and help them.”

“There’s a lot of disabled people and poor people that this post office serves,” resident George Hester said. “It would be a shame for them to have to take a bus to get to another post office. And it is the pride of the community.”

Many Maplewood business people spoke up.

Ed Putney, owner of said he’s been in business for 40 years, and called the Maplewood office the best in the area. He named each counter worker. “There’s Zylvia, there’s Margaret, Carl, they’re all friends,” he said.

He is a businessman, though. “Importantly, there’ s a dollar amount, my business does between $2,000 and $3,000 in shipments a month out of that post office, and if it leaves, we will go to either FedEx or UPS.”

City Manager Marty Corcoran said the City of Maplewood goes to the post office five days a week. He pointed out that Maplewood is a full-service community, for the residents and businesses, and has been since its resurgence that started in 1994. He said back then, Maplewood was in the same boat, but it didn’t cut services.

"There’s more than one way to skin skin cat,” he said. “I may be egotistical when I say this, show me your budget for the Maplewood post office, and I’ll find you your $165,000."

Former mayor Mark Langston said there are more than 90 cities in the area, and only about six of them have a downtown area.

“We have a lot of people that walk in this community,” he said. “Over 50 percent of the housing stock is apartments. I don’t see where there would be any place convenient for our citizens to go for a post office if you were to move it out some place else.”

“What community is, is people interacting. We have the library, the pool, the city hall, wonderful churches," current mayor James White said. "That post office is part of that interaction, part of our community.”

At the end, St. Louis-area postal manager Russell Thouvenot thanked the attendees. "I want to thank you for making this difficult. I want to thank you for filling this room."

Comments can be sent to:

Sue Wandersee
Gateway District
1720 Market Street, Room 3000
St. Louis, MO 63155

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