SPENCER SOPER

Staff Writer

ENCINITAS -- Though they led the charge to keep a downtown post office open only four years ago, the Downtown Encinitas MainStreet Association will not fight the latest effort to close the small branch, its officials said Monday.

The United States Postal Service announced Thursday the brick post office at 1130 Second St. will close on July 20. The pending closure is part of sweeping nationwide cuts prompted by projections the agency will lose up to $3 billion this year, postal officials said.

DEMA officials said the downtown branch, which is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays with no evening or Saturday service, is not worth a battle. Instead, the group is asking that the downtown office remain open until a contract postal provider is set up downtown.

Postal service spokesman Mike Cannone said the agency is trying to get approval from managers in San Francisco to establish a downtown postal service contractor. There are 45 such providers -- mostly card shops, copy places and pharmacies -- in the county who sell stamps, money orders and take packages in exchange for a percentage of the gross sales, Cannone said.

"They get paid by the post office, but they also get extra foot traffic, which generates more sales," he said.

Postal service contractors providers do not have post office boxes and don't process bulk mail, Cannone said.

Despite DEMA's request, Cannone said the downtown post office will close before an alternate provider is established. The postal service expects to get the necessary approvals from San Francisco this week to find a downtown contractor, but it will take up to 90 days to notify merchants, evaluate the prospective contractors and train their employees, he said.

"We're going to expedite this as much as we can," he said.

DEMA Executive Director Peder Norby said the downtown post office was destined to fail because it operated with a skeleton staff and limited hours. He said he's hopeful that a local merchant can provide better postal service than the post office.

"We can't fix the United States Post Office," he said.

The postal service tried to close the downtown branch four years ago when it built a new 32,000-square-foot branch on Gardenview Drive more than six miles away. But residents and the Downtown Encinitas MainStreet Association fought the closure and pressured postal officials to keep the place open, saying it provided an essential service.

There are three other Encinitas postal offices: Cardiff, Leucadia and the main office in New Encinitas.

Contact staff writer Spencer Soper at (760)943-2313 or ssoper@nctimes.com

6/26/01