News 12 at 11 o'clock / Tuesday, July 12, 2011

"Save our post office."

That's what picket signs say across roads in Perkins, which is in Jenkins County.

The reason for the signs: The United States Postal Service is thinking about closing the Perkins Post Office. Residents there went to a town hall meeting Tuesday night.

"If you even look at your news or even hear your news, you know we are downsizing," said, Alice Ryle, a USPS spokeswoman.

One of the reasons the Postal Service is looking to potentially close the office in Perkins is because it does not have a full-time postmaster. The Postal Service has held back from filling the position due to downsizing.

"If a vacancy is the only thing that it keeping it from being open, I think they should just fill the vacancy and leave these people alone," said J.J. Smith, a retired postman.

It's not the only reason the USPS is considering closing the Perkins Post Office. Money is the main reason, but right now, all they're doing is thinking about it.

"This is only a study," Ryles said. "There has not been a decision to close the Perkins Post Office.

Tuesday's town hall meeting was one part of the study. The USPS wants to get community feedback, and they did. More than 100 people packed in the Perkins Community House with no air conditioning.

"We have so many elderly and disabled people," Alice Hopperfarr said. "I just don't see how they could close us down."

If the Perkins Post Office closes, residents will have to drive 8 miles to Millen or 15 miles to Waynesboro to the nearest post offices.

"If these old folks have to go to Waynesboro to get packages that have medicine once or twice a month, it's going to cost them," Mike Lane said.

For Lane, and at least more than 100 other people living in Perkins, the message is simple: "Don't close our post office. It's not practical," Lane said.

If the postal service decides to shut down its office in Perkins, it would happen in six months at the earliest. If that happens, people will have to do more things online and over the phone, which many of them are not used to doing.

They would also have to drive further. People who live there say unemployment plays an issue. They say it's tough to afford driving 16 miles round trip every few days to get packages.

The postal service said another option for Perkins, if its office shuts down, is to open a village post office. That's an office where someone voluntarily runs it out of a business, for instance, a hardware store. People who live in Perkins say there's a fire department, but there aren't any viable businesses in the area to set up shop.