The Postal Service has come out with another new commercial. It’s just 15 seconds long — but long enough to fit in what Mark Twain would call a “stretcher.”
A progress report on S&DC conversions and plant consolidations
At this point it’s unclear how much of the radical transformation plan will be implemented before a speed bump slows it down — pushback from the public, Congressional oversight, a PRC advisory opinion, a change in leadership at the Postal Service. For now, though, implementation is proceeding steadily, albeit with some delays, but more or less as planned.
OIG revises announcement of its S&DC audit (again), will now focus on communication
The USPS Office of Inspector General has made some changes in the announcement about its audit of the Postal Service’s Sorting and Delivery Centers. It’s the second time the announcement has been revised. In December, the OIG’s website said one of the ongoing audits would focus on the Postal Service’s “Development and Communication of Sorting and Delivery Centers.” As shown … Read More
The Postal Service unwinds the NDC network and merges the mail streams
As part of its 10-year plan to streamline the network, the Postal Service is in the process of “unwinding” its 21 Network Distribution Centers, which handle Marketing Mail, Periodicals and some ground packages. One of the goals of this NDC Unwind is to merge the mail and packages handled by the NDCs into the First Class Mail stream. While that … Read More
USPS OIG pushes back release date of audit of S&DC plan
In December, the USPS Office of Inspector General announced that it had initiated an audit of the Postal Service’s “Development and Communication of Sorting and Delivery Centers.” As shown on this version of the announcement from the Internet Archive, the estimated release date was originally June 28, 2023. Sometime over the past week or two, the OIG’s website changed the … Read More
The first two historic post offices put at risk by the S&DC plan
This month the Postal Service is continuing implementation of its initiative to transform the delivery network. Seventeen post offices are seeing their carriers relocated to five new Sorting & Delivery Centers (S&DCs). A list of them is here. After the carriers are gone and more than half the floor space becomes “excess,” the fate of these post offices will be … Read More
Texas Two-Step: S&DC holds a grand opening, Post Office gets downsized
The Postal Service will hold the grand opening of the new Sorting & Delivery Center in Bryan, Texas, on February 23, 6 to 8 pm. The Bryan S&DC will be the new home for about a hundred letter carriers who have been working out of the College Station post office a few miles away. The Bryan S&DC is one of … Read More
USPS Postal Bulletin publishes the 85 discontinuance announcements previously omitted
The current issue of the Postal Bulletin contains all 85 of the post office discontinuance announcements that had been omitted from two earlier issues because there were too many of them, plus nine more that hadn’t been announced. All of these discontinuances were for post offices that had been closed by emergency suspension many years ago. As discussed in this … Read More
The USPS Eagle spins S&DCs to postal employees
The cover story of the new issue of the Postal Service’s Eagle Magazine is “Re-Thinking Local Delivery.” It’s all about the big, new, modern Sorting and Delivery Centers that will replace carrier operations at your local post office. The article has a graphic showing a delivery vehicle out on a route making stops at the ten benefits of the new … Read More
USPS reverses policy, will publish all post office discontinuances in Postal Bulletin
Back in September, the Postal Service introduced a new policy that put a limit on the number of discontinuances it would publish in any given issue of Postal Bulletin. In the issues of September 8 and September 22, the Bulletin explained that “due to the extensive number of offices on the Discontinuance List,” the discontinuances would be announced on the … Read More
Is Biden still considering appointing two new postal governors?
A few weeks ago, it appeared (as noted in this previous post) that President Biden had passed up the opportunity to appoint two new members of the Board of Governors, and with it, the chance to maybe appoint Governors who might want to replace the Postmaster General. Now it seems that the appointment of two new Governors is still a … Read More
USPS submits calculations for density and retirement rate authorities to raise prices
Today the Postal Service submitted its calculations to the Postal Regulatory Commission for its density rate authority and retirement rate authority to increase rates in the coming year. These are the amounts that the Postal Service is permitted to raise rates on Market Dominant products beyond the Consumer Price Index (which, until November 2020, had put a cap on increases). … Read More
