Editorial: Use it or lose it

Without much fanfare, Bronx officials from the United States Postal Service began stationing one of their four mobile units here in Southern Highbridge three weeks ago.

It marked the first time in nearly 20 years that the Postal Service has had a presence in our neighborhood more than the scattered mailboxes and the overworked mail carriers.

That presence will be a brief one unless we start using the mobile unit every week.

The Postal Services’ manager of customer service operations for the Bronx called the first day of the mobile unit “a fiasco.” OF COURSE IT WAS A FIASCO! Of course no one showed up to use it because no one knew about it! No advertisements appeared in our newspapers and no signs went up in our buildings. (Highbridge Community Life Center put up some signs on its own. Flyers from the Postal Service arrived a week later.)

The van is only parked here for three hours on Wednesday mornings. It does not accept packages that weigh more than four pounds.

That was by design. The Postal Service wants this mobile unit to not show a profit so that in two months someone can come back and say, “we tried, but you obviously don’t need additional mail service here.”

We cannot let that happen.

As bizarre as this sounds, whenever possible we should hold our mail and light packages until Wednesdays and bring them to the mobile unit instead of putting them in a drop box. We should also wait until Wednesdays to buy our stamps.

If we don’t wait until Wednesdays … if we send out our mail when our mail is ready to be sent … the Postal Service will strip us of our mobile unit. At least for now, we must go out of our way to use the mobile unit. Try to avoid buying just one or two stamps and instead buy a sheet or a book.

Profit is their motive, so we must give them profit. If we do not step up now, we cannot complain when the Postal Service gives up on us.