Galloway Township Closing Municipal Complex Post Office

After a long fight, the post office finally gave in.

The post office at the municipal complex on Jimmie Leeds Road in Galloway will close as of Jan. 1, 2013. The drop boxes will remain in place.

According to Township Manager Arch Liston, profits from the post office were down half a percent from the previous year. The post office was generating $54,000 and expenses are $80,000, according to Liston.

“Part of the problem is that when people are out running errands, the post office is closed because the employee is at lunch,” Councilman Jim Gorman said at the council meeting on Tuesday night, Oct. 23.

“We’ve been kicking this can down the street a long time,” Mayor Don Purdy said of the decision to close the post office. “It’s nice to have a post office in Galloway, but we’re not in the postal business.”

The discussion regarding closing the Post Office began in 2010, but resident Anna Jezycki has led the fight on the part of the residents to keep the post office open.

“I understand it’s a financial thing and that’s why we have to close it, but don’t say we’re not in the postal business because that’s not why this post office is here in the first place,” she said during the public comment portion Tuesday night. “It’s there because we needed our own zip code. We never looked at it as the township taking on something it shouldn’t be doing. … The mail used to read Absecon Highlands, now it reads Galloway Township. We have a new zip code (08205).

“This is a mistake. Once we close the post office, we’ll never have it again.”