Post office cuts back hours

Beginning this month, the Forest Hills Post Office, located at 106-28 Queens Boulevard, will be open fewer hours, and this has residents in an uproar.
“… Hundreds of people … come to get a head start on their mailing needs,” said S. Richards of Forest Hills. “The daytime crowds reach panic proportions [and] with every hour that passes postal workers’ morale deteriorates.”
According to Jeff Goldman, manager, the weekday hours have been scaled back from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. to 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“The majority of customers are between 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.,” said Goldman. “Let’s have employees available in the afternoon and early evening [to serve them].”
Citing a probable monetary cause for the cutback in hours — and calling it “smart management that still meets the needs of the public” — Goldman went on to tell The Queens Courier that most postal services can be handled by the mobile unit, located outside the post office, and an automated machine inside the lobby.
“We need the clerks for distribution in the back,” he said. “The [new hours] give us extra manpower to work with the distribution part [of the operation].”
The Forest Hills Post Office, which has seen a decrease in the volume of first class letters but an increase in parcel service, mainly due to E-Bay mailings, handles 200,000 pieces of mail daily and serves residents from Union Turnpike to Yellowstone Boulevard and from the Grand Central Parkway to Metropolitan Avenue.
Many of these are now turning to local politicians and their community board.
“We have had a number of complaints regarding the change of hours,” said Frank Gulluscio, district manager of Community Board (CB) 6.
“Before, if you go to work early you could get everything done. That’s not possible now.”
The problem is looming so large for residents that the issue is currently on the agenda of the May 10 CB meeting.
Post office officials as well as politicians are expected to attend. “With new high-rise buildings opening, they need to send a message to Washington, D.C. that we have a million people here without proper postal service and boiling mad tempers that might explode,” said Richards.
Repeated calls to the Postmaster of Flushing went unanswered at press time, but Congressman Anthony Weiner is working with the Postmaster.