A couple dozen community members spaced out across the lawn of Owensboro’s post office on 4th Street to show support of the Postal Service Tuesday.
“We’re out here rallying today for the protection of the post office and the service that we have come to expect and enjoy from our local post offices and post offices across the United States,” said Donna Haynes, Daviess County Democratic party chair and organizer of the rally.
There has been criticism nationwide over recent changes to the Postal Service. Some measures included cutting overtime for mail carriers, reducing post office hours and removing post office boxes.
Much of the backlash revolved around mail-in voting for the 2020 election, as the cost-cutting moves could slow mail delivery.
On Tuesday, those changes were suspended until after the election by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, after at least 20 Democratic states announced plans to file federal lawsuits.
The local rally was held before the announcement. While some of their concerns were about the election, some participants said it was a much bigger issue.
“This is not a business as they are trying to say,” Nancy Connor said. “This is a service to maintain our communication between families, between businesses, the mailing of medicines, and voting. If we don’t fund them, then it’s going to break down.”
She continued: “It encompasses many little fingers, except they’re big fingers. It’s the privatization, it’s the restriction on mail delivery and pickup and thereby altering voting, medicine, communications.”
Wayne Herbst, who was a mail carrier for 35 years, said the privatization of the Postal Service would be “terrible, especially in the rural areas.”
As it is, even rural residents can get daily mail through USPS. Herbst said that could be limited to two or three days a week if it was privatized.
“I could see the post office folding if they try to privatize it,” he said. “Especially if we got someone in there that’s just interested in the bottom line rather than the more important thing which is automatic daily mail delivery.”
Though the changes are at least on hold, the concerns from rally-goers won’t go away without a long-term commitment by USPS to maintain their services.
“This is a very important issue and something we’ve got to preserve,” Haynes said. “There’s too many people whose very lives depend on the very service that the post office gives. We’ve got to protect that. It’s the backbone of our country.”
