The first public meeting about the upcoming changes to the USPS delivery network took place yesterday in Andover, Mass. The meeting was broadcast on Andover TV Public Channel, Comcast 8, Verizon Fios 47, as well as in HD on live streams and mobile app: andovertv.org/livestreams.

The meeting was put together and hosted by William Kolbe, retired Andover teacher, author of “Commentary: USPS sorting center unduly taxes Andover carriers.”

The panel included:

• Jamie Partridge, a retired letter carrier and long-time postal advocate, who phoned in from Oregon with an overview of the plan;
• Peter Blunt, a retired letter carrier with over 20 years of experience, who spoke about the dangers for letter carriers who will need to drive longer distances to the centralized delivery facilities;
• Dave Stager, rural letter carrier in Michigan and a member of CPWU, who joined by phone to speak about some of the practical problems of the plan;
• Scott Hoffman, Boston Area American Postal Workers president, who spoke about the faulty bill of goods being sold to the public by the leadership of the Postal Service.

The meeting provided excellent perspectives on the specific problems posed by the plan to centralize carriers as well as the larger context of what’s happening at the Postal Service under Postmaster General DeJoy.

Learn more about the plan on our Delivery Network Dashboard and these previous posts: