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'Small towns fight attempts to move post offices Page 2 of 5 <br /> iegisiauuii as a way 01 imnung sprawi aiiu pruinoung viuraiu wwu <br /> centers. <br /> • "Postoffices are essential to downtowns," said Richard Moe, a <br /> Minnesota native who heads the National Trust for Historic <br /> Preservation. "When a postoffice leaves a downtown, there can be a <br /> ripple effect," he said. "When they remain, they help give a sense of <br /> community to a town. You can't overstate their importance." <br /> Simmonds offers DeGraff as a case in point. <br /> "Since the postoffice was closed in 1996,we have lost a cafe,two <br /> fertilizer businesses, a lumber yard and our gas station" as traffic <br /> declined in town, he said. "I'm not saying all of this happened <br /> because of the postoffice,but its departure sure didn't help." <br /> Simmonds' anecdotal account fits with a National Historic Trust <br /> survey conducted in Iowa a few years ago.The survey concluded <br /> that 80 percent of the people who shopped downtown in Iowa <br /> communities did so because of the postoffice. "The postoffice," the <br /> Trust concluded, "serves as the anchor tenant that attracts shoppers <br /> to Main Street businesses." <br /> Not necessary <br /> • The Postal Service would like folks to cool down. Last year, it <br /> declared a moratorium on nonemergency post-office closings, and <br /> postal officials say a legislative fix is unnecessary. "It would really <br /> hamper our ability to move quickly to meet changing service <br /> needs," said Norm Scherstrom, spokesman for the Postal Service in <br /> Washington. <br /> Officials in towns such as DeGraff and Fergus Falls, Minn., <br /> Auburn, Calif., or Pittsboro,N.C., don't see it that way. Leaders of <br /> those cities have grappled with plans to close or move their towns' <br /> postal facilities. <br /> "The legislation is a good thing," said Paul Ogden, city manager of <br /> Auburn, a city of 11,500 nestled in the foothills of the Sierra <br /> Mountains about 30 miles from Sacramento. "A lot of economic <br /> harm has been done to downtowns because of Postal Service <br /> decisions." <br /> Auburn has had two troubling calls from the Postal Service. Early <br /> this decade, it lost a fight to keep the postoffice in its original <br /> location downtown; and the building that housed the old postoffice <br /> • still sits empty. <br /> Two years ago, a branch postoffice in Auburn's historic district was <br /> also slated for closure. That branch. believed to be the longest <br /> http://w.../article?thisSlug=POST21&date=21-Jun-99&word=office&word=post&word=office 6/24/99 <br />