“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” … Read More
Dear Santa, Please send the Post Office a miracle
A GUEST POST, BY SHERRI MADDICK Every holiday season TV stations run the fabulous 1947 classic film, "Miracle on 34th Street," starring 9-year-old Natalie Wood. In the movie, there is a nice old man (Edmund Gwenn) who plays Santa at Gimbels Department Store in New York City. He says his real name is Kris Kringle, but he is threatened to … Read More
Week in Review: The discontinuing continues
A couple of weeks ago, word leaked out that the Postal Service would put a temporary suspension on post office closings and plant consolidations to avoid problems during the holiday season. The suspension was supposed to go into effect on Friday, Nov. 18, but some offices closed on Saturday and early the following week — right before Thanksgiving. There's more … Read More
The New York Times Editorial: How many things can you get wrong in 300 words?
The New York Times welcomes the holiday season with a 300-word editorial entitled “Overhauling the Post Office for the 21ST Century.” The piece gets so many things wrong that it would be laughable if it weren’t so maddening. It’s really the Times’ editorial staff that ought to overhauled. On five-day delivery First, the Times calls the request from management to … Read More
The Best Postal System Money Can Buy
GUEST POST “Falling mail volume and soaring red ink may soon doom Saturday mail delivery and prompt three-day-a-week delivery within 15 years, Postmaster General warns.” — (USA Today, July 19, 2011) It had to happen. In the year 2020 the Postmaster General went on television and announced to the country that because of a $600 billion USPS deficit and Congress’ refusal … Read More
Week in Review: AMPs, 10-K, PRC, CBRE, VPO, GAO & OWS
It was another busy week in Postal World — post offices keep closing, plant consolidation plans keep rolling on, the GAO keeps coming up with studies, and the PRC struggles to keep up with the appeals and Advisory Opinion. Here are just some of the highlights: Hearing in Harlem: The New York Metro Area APWU announced that on Tuesday, Nov. 22, … Read More
How Many People Use the Post Office? Does the Postal Service Even Know?
There’s a new GAO report out this week by the indefatigable Phillip Herr. It’s called “Action Needed to Maximize Cost-Saving Potential of Alternatives to Post Offices.” In this week’s Federal Eye column for the Washington Post, Ed O’Keefe writes about the report and poses the question, “How bad is it at the post office? Here are the numbers.” Citing Herr’s … Read More
What does it take to save a post office? Looking at appeals on closings
Yesterday, the Postal Regulatory Commission rejected three more appeals to save post offices — in Minneapolis, NC; Chillicothe, IA; and Pilot Grove, IA. But the PRC finally ruled in favor of a community seeking to save its post office. The ruling on Innis, Louisiana, “remands” the “Final Determination” to close the post office back to the Postal Service for further consideration. That may or … Read More
Things fall apart, the center cannot hold: Time tells the story
There’s an excellent piece in Time.com today entitled “How the U.S. Postal Service Fell Apart,” by Josh Sanburn. Unlike most articles in the mainstream media, this one takes a thoughtfully balanced approach to the story. Postmaster General Donahoe is there to provide the Postal Service’s view, but there are also interviews and a narrative line that tell another side of … Read More
Protest in Roanoke
Yesterday postal workers and neighbors fought back against the United States Postal Service over its plan to close the mail processing facility in Roanoke, Virginia. Roanoke.com has the story. Note that according to the TV report, the District Manager told the crowd that over the last ten years, first-class mail volume has dropped 50%. But there were 104 billion … Read More
Another post office closing: It’s the same old story, don’t you know?
The post office in Clements, Minnesota, is closing on Friday, the day before the USPS suspension on closings goes into effect. Other than that sad detail, the story is all too familiar. The Postal Service cites declining revenues over the past few years and a reduction in workload as the reasons for closing the Clements post office. But both … Read More
The Week in Review: Rallies, briefs, complaints, letters, and road trips
Another week of post office closing news — rallies to protest the downsizing, briefs filed at the PRC, road trips to visit threatened post offices, complaints about the closing process, a letter from Ralph Nader to the Postmaster General asking for empathy, and more on the Village Post Office, a concept that just won't go away. Here’s a wrap-up of … Read More
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