Local post office to be closed

The municipality resisted the yellow giant's decision to convert the post office into a postal agency – in vain, as it now turns out.

It has been announced and is now becoming a fact: the post office in Oberägeri is to close. It will be converted into an agency, according to an announcement by the municipality on Tuesday. The local council had tried everything to prevent the closure of the post office. For example, it asked the Postcom commission to review the decision to close the post office branch. The latter has now approved the conversion plan.

Postcom bases its decision on the fact that the decision of the Post Office to create agencies with operating counters is in line with the legal framework, and still makes a good postal services available in the areas concerned, as it stated in the communication.

Commitment to a good agency
The local council is, of course, disappointed. The mayor (Gemeindepräsident) , Pius Meier, is quoted as follows:

"We are still convinced that an agency solution cannot fully offer the existing services, and that the necessary discretion is not maintained."

He goes on to say: "We have used all the means at our disposal against the closure, and very much regret that Postcom did not follow our line of argument."

Photo 1: It is still unclear when the doors of the post office in Oberägeri will remain.
Photo 2: Municipal mayor Pius Meier.

The municipality now wants to ensure "that the full range of services will be available to the population in the event of an agency solution". It is not yet clear when the closure will become a fact. On the other hand, it has been clear for some time that the postal agency will be located in the Oberägeri Coop at Hauptstrasse 15.

An independent commission
The Post Office announced its plans to close the branch in the village as long ago as 2017. The Oberägeri municipal council had this decision reviewed by Postcom. This is an independent authority that oversees the Swiss postal market, and is affiliated to the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (Uvek). In accordance with the Postal Ordinance and at the request of a municipality concerned, Postcom checks whether the Postal Service has complied with the requirements of the procedure, and has consulted the authorities and sought a agreeable settlement.

The Commission also clarifies whether the decision takes account of regional circumstances. An audit by Postcom is open to all affected municipalities, whereby Oberägeri was the first in the canton of Zug to decide to take this step.

The wish was a post office in the planned building complex
The municipality did not dispute the Post Office's well-known argument for a closure: the declining number of customers. It did, however, consider the timing to have been poorly chosen, given the background of the Local Planning Revision, which began this year. As part of this process, the future design of the ZVB site will be reviewed, with a public-oriented central building complex being envisaged. In December 2019, the mayor, Pius Meier, told our newspaper that they would have liked to see a post office in this complex, and made it clear that the council wanted to make full use of all available possibilities.

That is what he has now done. Ultimately, however, his efforts have been in vain. As has been the case for the vast majority of Swiss municipalities.