`Postmasters: 1-cent hike is no big deal`

By Jennifer Hall
Herald Staff Writer

Mercer County residents seem to be keeping up with the times as postmasters help them prepare for Sunday’s postal-rate increase.

“The customers seem to be up to date,” said Bruce Gorley, the acting postmaster in Sharon. “I think everything is going to go pretty smoothly.”

The penny increase making the cost of a stamp 33 cents takes effect Sunday. The new stamps were available to customers in November.

Eight out of 10 phone calls at the Greenville post office have been from people checking when the increase goes into effect and how much it is, said Postmaster Patrick Doyle,. “A lot of people knew it was coming, but many thought it happened at the first of the year,” he said.

Mailboxes in Sharon, Hermitage and Sharpsville will be emptied Saturday and early Sunday for a clean start at 33 cents, Gorley said.

If someone puts something in after the last collection time Saturday in Greenville, it will arrive with postage due, Doyle said.

“But I can tell you that the Postal Service is sensitive to the customers’ needs, especially at the time when we do rate increases,” he said. Any envelope mailed with a 32-cent stamp would be sent postage due or returned to the sender.

Some carriers will pay the penny out of their pockets and then bill the receiver for it, Gorley said.

David Shaner, postmaster in Grove City, reminds residents to be careful to use the 33 cents postage, because some agencies refuse to accept payments with postage due. “Then it would be returned to the sender and that could mean late charges,” he said. Most of the local post offices have plenty of 1-cent stamps for customers to add to their remaining 32-cent stamps.

“We’ve had a run on 1 cent stamps,” Gorley said, adding that the Sharon post office had some and more are ordered.

Employees operating through the Grove City post office have been armed with plenty of 1-cent stamps and about 10,000 more were in the vault, Shaner said.

Plenty of signs remind customers that Sunday is penny day. “But a lot of people are using the new stamps already,” he said.

During the last week, as customers ordered stamps, postmasters, including Al Marzano of Sandy Lake, reminded customers of the increase. “I would say something so they wouldn’t buy an over amount of 32-cent stamps.

“It’s been an average business,” he said. “I’m selling 33-cent stamps to some people who want to start using them and a few 32-cent stamps.”

Doyle emphasized that any customer who couldn’t make it to the post office to get 1- or 33-cent stamps didn’t have to worry about being inconvenienced. Stamps can be ordered from carriers. “If they give their carrier a check and an order for a book of stamps, we will deliver them the next day,” he said.

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Updated January 8, 1999
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