WEST SPRINGFIELD — The U.S. Postal Service is giving West Springfield customers a choice: a part-time post office or nothing.

The Postal Service plans to reduce window service at the local post office from six and one-half to four hours daily on weekdays and continue Saturday morning hours, according to a May 28 letter to customers from USPS Post Plan Coordinator Joseph Garvin.

That’s unless at least 60 percent of West Springfield customers prefer a “discontinuance study” to determine if the post office should be closed instead, Garvin said.

Alternatives to reduced hours, according to a customer survey accompanying Garvin’s letter, are closing the post office but continuing rural delivery; closing the post office and making stamps and other postal products available at a local business; and closing the post office and providing mail service from a neighboring post office, probably East Springfield, about 4 miles away, or Albion, about 11 miles away.

“There should be one more choice on the survey, for service as is,” said Raymond Camp, chairman of the Springfield Township Board of Supervisors. Camp lives in West Springfield.

The proposed reduction in post office hours is just another example of government reducing services and spending in rural communities, Camp said.

Postal Service proposes halving hours at West Springfield Post Office