Mulkeytown, IL Post Office closes its doors

SteveBlog

WSIL: What was known as the ‘final gathering place’ of Mulkeytown, Ill., has closed. The Mulkeytown Post Office has officially closed its doors. The building was leased to the St. Louis United States Postal Service Distribution Center, but the landlords wanted to do something else with the building, so they did not renew the lease. The Communication Coordinator for the Distribution Center, … Read More

Rolling Meadows, IL, tries to get post office to come back

SteveBlog

Daily Herald: Nearly six years after the Rolling Meadows, Ill., post office closed, residents and local officials are trying to get it back. Mayor Len Prejna is working with the offices of U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Schaumburg and Peter Roskam of Wheaton to lobby U.S. Postmaster General Megan Brennan. Dave Whitney, a community volunteer and member of the city’s … Read More

Post Office discontinuances and suspensions: A decade in review

SteveBlog, Story

The Postal Service and the Postal Regulatory Commission are currently working on the annual compliance review.  The goal of the ACR, as stated in 39 U.S.C. §3652, is to determine if during the previous fiscal year the Postal Service has met all of the rate setting and service goals of the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. The review deals primarily with the issue of … Read More

Yantic post office closure appeal denied, facility to stay closed

adminBlog

The Postal Regulatory Commission has denied the city of Norwich's appeal on the closure of the Yantic post office, backing the U.S. Postal Service’s February 2012 decision to close the Yantic post office. Mayor Deb Hinchey and other officials expressed dismay, saying preserving services in the outlying Norwich neighborhood was important for economic development, an argument she made when the … Read More

No way! PRC rejects appeal on post office closure for being late — by one day

adminStory

Last Friday afternoon, the Postal Regulatory Commission sent letters to the folks appealing the closure of the Franklin Station post office in Somerset County, New Jersey, telling them the appeals had been filed too late and were consequently being rejected.  The appeals were postmarked one day after the filing deadline. The Commission’s decision is disturbing for a number of reasons. … Read More

Gretna gears up to save the post office, again

adminStory

For nearly 70 years, the people in Gretna, Louisiana, did their postal business at a beautiful post office built in 1936.  It had a New Deal mural entitled “Steamboats on the Mississippi,” painted by Stuart R. Purser in 1939. In 2003 the Postal Service announced that it wanted to close the post office and sell the building.  The city of … Read More

The Postal Service shares some lists: Closures, Suspensions, VPOs, CPUs, and Retail Channels

adminStory

Yesterday the Postal Service provided the Postal Regulatory Commission with some lists and other material for the annual compliance report.  They include the post offices that were closed and suspended during fiscal year 2012 (October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2012), as well as information about retail revenue sources and Contract Postal Units (CPUs) and Village Post Offices (VPOs). You … Read More

What’s to hide? The Postal Service turns over some closing lists

adminStory

Getting closing lists out of the Postal Service is like, well, pulling teeth.  Over the past several months, hundreds of post offices have closed, gone into emergency suspension, or received a Final Determination notice indicating they’ll close in 60 days.  But try to find a list of all of these post offices on the USPS website.  One gets the impression … Read More

Arkansas Update: Post Offices Off the Closing Lists

adminStory

Word comes from Arkansas today that a dozen post offices, as well as a couple of others we'd heard about previously, have been removed from the list of those in the state being studied for closure under the Retail Access Optimization Initiative.  That's brings to nearly a hundred the number of post offices removed from the RAOI (most of them … Read More

The Twisted Logic of the Postal Service: Fewer post offices, and more post offices without a postmaster

adminStory

It takes a lot of imagination to destroy an institution as big and durable as the U. S. Postal Service, but the executives in L'Enfant Plaza keep coming up with bold new ideas for doing just that. Today the Postal Service published its “Final Rule” on “amending its regulations to improve the administration of the Post Office closing and consolidation … Read More

Here Come the Closings, Starting with the A’s

adminStory

Yesterday the Postal Service announced that twenty-one post offices in Alabama would be closing in November and December, and today there’s word that some in Arkansas are closing as well, so it looks like the Postal Service is working its way through the alphabet.   Next week we’ll probably hear about closings in Arizona, California, and Colorado.  It’s only been a … Read More

Haste Makes Waste: The Hidden Cost of Closing Post Offices

adminStory

The vast majority of post offices being reviewed for closure are leased properties, and most of them will have months or years left on the lease when they close.  The Postal Service could run into some serious buy-out costs over the coming year, perhaps close to $100 million. About 250 post offices have closed so far this year, and another … Read More

Post Office Closings: Updated List and Projections

adminStory

The pace of post office closings and appeals is picking up, and it’s only going to get worse over the coming months.  If Congress doesn’t do something soon, by the end of the year we’re going to see post offices closing at a rate of several per day. An updated list of the post offices that have closed, been suspended, … Read More