Groups aim to save post office

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Updated: June 20, 2011 2:14AM

JOLIET — Civic leaders have cranked up the campaign to save the downtown post office.

The City Center Partnership, a business group that promotes downtown business development, has been getting neighborhood residents involved in the effort to keep the city’s secondary post office open.

The Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce has contacted businesses and other chamber members.

And, the city of Joliet will send its own resolution to the U.S. Postal Service emphasizing the civic interest in keeping the facility downtown at a time when the city wants keep the central business district vital and growing.

The downtown facility is a substation of the main Joliet post office, which is located on the West Side on McDonough Street. But, noted Joliet City Councilman-at-Large Don Fisher, “There are 50,000 people in the primary service area for that postal station. Fifty thousand is larger than 90 percent of the cities in Illinois. I’ll bet all of those cities have a full-service postal station.”

Fisher heads the city council’s land use committee, which agreed last week that the city should send a resolution to the Postal Service urging it to keep the downtown facility open.

A spokesman has said the Postal Service is looking for customer input and not the opinion of civic leaders.

Even so, “I certainly don’t think it will hurt,” Russ Slinkard, chief executive of the Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce said when asked if he thought a civic campaign on behalf of the post office would do any good.

The chamber actually has focused its efforts on making sure that downtown businesses and organizations that use the post office fill out a survey created by the Postal Service to determine the facility’s future. Those users include the chamber, which has its office downtown.

“We go there every day,” Slinkard said.

“It isn’t just the business that use the post office but the employees,” he said. “It’s very seldom that you go in there and there aren’t people in line.”

But the Postal Service is cutting back because of its own financial problems. The Postal Service lost $8.5 billion in 2010 and has projected a $6.4 billion loss this year. The downtown Joliet post office is among hundreds being eyed for possible closing.

Postal Service spokesman Jose Aguilar said the surveys are part of an investigation into whether the actual use of the office justifies the expense of keeping it open.

City officials are trying to get the Postal Service to look at the potential business in downtown Joliet with plans in the works for a new transit center and other projects to bring new development to the area.

Meanwhile, the City Center Partnership also has solicited the help of East Side neighborhood groups to get residents who use the post office to fill out the surveys.

“People are turning in the surveys,” said Tom Mahalik, vice president of marketing for the city center partnership. “The response has been good.”

The post office building itself is more than 100 years old but is not owned by the Postal Service.

Mahalik’s father, Rudy Mahalik, bought the building at 150 Scott St. in 1989 when it was up for sale. The Postal Service is one occupant in the building along with other office users.

Located in an older part of town, the post office also is closer to lower-income neighborhoods.

Part of the campaign to keep the facility open is to demonstrate that residents need a post office nearby.

“It isn’t just business,” Slinkard said. “A lot of people walk or catch a ride to the post office with someone else because they don’t have transportation.”

The Postal Service surveys are available at the post office. They will be collected through Friday.