Postal closing hurts town

In a rush to close post offices, the U.S. Postal Service is about to blow a $671,000 stimulus that was granted to Malden, Wash.

For years, the town’s growth had been stunted due to its lack of access to fast Internet service. Malden received a grant to establish a broadband system in 2008. The broadband system was created to help lure businesses to Malden and foster new and existing at-home businesses.

We went high-speed in the spring and received the closure proposal notice just a few months later. Now is not the time to close this post office. A local business is about to launch online ordering for its full line of organic soaps. They plan on shipping through the local post office but will be forced to move if this closure proposal goes through.

Besides the grant issue, savings numbers do not add up. They forgot to include walk-in revenues, and misleading words and phrases are used that do not correlate with the data presented.

Forgetting we are a vote-by-mail state, no provision for equal service on Election Day was planned. Questionnaires were not mailed to any of the surrounding farmers or Pine City.

Nick Backman

Malden, Wash.