Residents and guests of Aripeka West Mobile Home and RV Park have for years depended on the United States Postal Service to operate the Post Office located on Aripeka Road in Aripeka Florida. The Pasco County side of Aripeka does not receive home delivery of their mail and a Post Office located in the small community where everyone was given a "free" PO Box seemed to make the lack of home delivery bearable. A recent letter delivered to our "free" PO Boxes last week informed all residents that the Post Office in Aripeka will close at the end of the business day on September 21, 2013. Some kind of dispute between the landowner and the United States Postal Service, so the letter stated. It is almost impossible to believe that the Postal Service does not own the little piece land where the Aripeka Post Office sits. This came as a complete surprise to most everyone served by the Post Office.
Last year the Postal Service asked everyone served by the Aripeka location whether the operation should be moved to the Hudson location, this idea was not favored by those in Aripeka. Aripekans were also asked if they would like home delivery or to just leave the mail as it was, delivered to our PO boxes. There was never any information from the Postal Service as to what the people they surveyed really wanted. Service hours were shortened and the Postal Service continued to operate the location in Aripeka.
So now, here it is about one year later and suddenly they can't come to terms with their landlord. Can't help but think this was coming as far back as the survey, it is just that now it is being crammed down the throats of the residents who have long been denied what most people in the United States consider "normal mail service";"
mail is delivered directly to their homes or to cluster boxes located throughout their subdivisions".
It is not fair for residents of Aripkea, who are denied home mail delivery, to have to travel over 6 miles one-way to the Post Office located in Hudson, Florida. It will be an extreme hardship for many living in Aripeka Florida (Pasco County). Many are elderly and no longer drive, others do not have vehicles and although it is possible to walk or ride a bicycle to the Hudson location, it is a long walk or ride with no sidewalks or bicycles paths available. US 19 is not a safe place for walking or riding a bicycle, just look at the statistics on pedestrian and bicyclists killed or maimed while trying to negotiate travel along side of cars, cement trucks and 18 wheelers traveling a 55MPH or better along US 19.
While the entire country knows that the Post Office is losing money, we in Aripeka Florida think it very unfair to place this kind of hardship on us. Surely the cost of operating a Post Office location in Aripeka, including payroll, building maintenance, utilities and apparently "rent", is much more costly than to deliver mail to the mailboxes of a few hundred residents.
We in Aripeka either want the Post Office to continue to be located in our small community or the mail be delivered to mailboxes located on the street in front of our homes or in the case of Aripeka West Mobile Home and RV Park to a cluster box provided by the United States Postal Service and located near the entry gate to the community.
If you agree, make you voice heard! Tell everyone you know, tell the Postal Service, tell your County Commissioners, tell your Congressman, tell your Senator, tell your Governor, we are only a few hundred but the Postal Service should not be allowed to deny us mail service IN our community!
Make some noise before it is too late, September 21st will be here before you know it.
