What is wrong with the US Postal Service at Sabana?

By Thomas Jimmy Rosario Martínez, Director

For decades, the Sabana Branch Postal Service Office has been serving to Sabana Ward, located in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. Sabana was originally a populated and working place due to the presence of the Central San Vicente, a cane sugar factory that started operations on 1872 under Spain flag.

It was already present at the 1898 transition due to the invasion of the americans, and after its closing on 1967, the community continued as an active and important commercial, sports and residential place.

Sabana Ward is a community of more than 425 families. Although they had a high rate of  people serving in the military branches, National Guard and Police in federal, Commonwealth and municipal forces they have been socially discriminated for political, race and poverty causes. 

The United States Postal Service had this partial service  office on duty until December 31, 2015. It served the community and delivered its correspondence until this date, when closed without prior notice to the people they served. Some of the recipients which benefited from this service are handicapped, aged people and american citizens that had no means to take their postal letters and packages far as where they usually does. The public transportation service for this community barely exists so the moving to the town to do the task of receiving mail will cause inconvenience.

The decision may be a logical one, but totally insensitive. Somebody says it was due by economic reasons, but in any case, it was not granted  a transition time to allow the neighborgs to make their arrangements and  receive their correspondence without delay or to became lost, as it is now expected.

Its an irony that if a postal employee does not comply his duty to deliver on time a letter  or a package is subject to administrative or even criminal charges, but when the officials provoke the situations by their wrong decisions, nothing happens.

The Mayor of Vega Baja, Marcos Cruz-Molina, as soon as got knowledge of the matter, communicated with the Postmaster of the town, Mr. Roberto Pagán and proposed alternatives for the continuity of the Postal Office, but it was decided to close forever, as the General Post Office of San Juan confirmed.

Since there is no mailman assigned to cover this community and no boxes to deliver the correspondence, the Mayor will try to help the community constructing places for cluster boxes. But it will last some weeks, perhaps months, to finish.

Meanwhile, due to lack of knowledge or experience or maybe for pure insensibility, somebody took the worst decision for american citizens that lives in a Puerto Rico community which continues to receive the whip of a prepotent and cold blood people behind a desk at San Juan management offices.