Congress has final say in halting Saturday mail delivery

It will take an act of Congress for the U.S. Postal Service to stop delivering the mail on Saturday.

Spokesman David Rupert said the Postmaster General is seeking to reduce mail delivery to five days in order to help with a projected $7 billion deficit for the coming year.

Rupert said cutting delivery on Saturdays would save the postal service $3.3 billion. Combined with relief from having to prepay retiree health care, he said the postal service could overcome the deficit.

He said the four post offices in Carson Valley, Genoa, Minden, Gardnerville and the Gardnerville Ranchos, are safe from consolidation.

"People in the Valley have nothing to fear about their post offices' closing," Rupert said. "Each serves a separate community and there's no overlap."

He said some metropolitan post offices will be consolidated where they are serving similar areas.

Rupert said the post office had a 20-billion-piece loss in volume over the last year.

"It's bad," he said. "We are not the government. We are trying to pay for our own operation out of our own revenues without having to resort to any sort of bailout. This is a way we can do it."

He said the post office still delivers 160 billion pieces a year.

"Americans still depend on the mail," he said. "We can't yank it away. All we're asking for is some help."