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Stamp of Dissaproval in Pasadena
Featured Apr 18, 2012
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Taking it to the Streets: Scores of Postal Workers, Occupy LA and Pasadena and other groups joined forces Tuesday evening to protest the massive cuts the Post Office is facing More than 100m post offices in California may close – Photos by Terry Miller
Deadline Looming for Postal Service Plans to Close 3,600 post offices and Layoff 100,000
By Terry Miller
About 50 protesters took to the streets Tuesday night at The Mack Robinson Center in Pasadena which is one of several US Mail processing facilities scheduled to close.
The message was clear and precise “ We love our Mailman” read one sign while another pointed out how inexpensive a stamp is compared to the other mail and overnight specialists out there competeing for post office business.
The center at the corner of Orange Grove Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue still bears the name of a Pasadena legend. But its passing will close the books on a bygone era according to some.
The internet has played a significant role in how we transmit mesages worldwide but there is still a great need for the daily delivery of US mial all over the country, particularly in rural areas.
Postal executives claim that email and social networks are killing the fine art of the written word with a pen.
But something else has hurt the post office for years – the agency’s pension plan.
The pension plan is fully funded 75 years into the future. The decline in letter-carrying will continue and the bulk of facilities will shift focus to dropping off parcels.
With big postal cuts looming, the Senate is deciding whether to stabilize the ailing U.S. Postal Service with a short-term cash infusion while delaying most decisions on closing post offices and ending Saturday mail delivery by requiring further review.
The mail agency, which is really on the brink of bankruptcy say experts, says it needs to begin closing thousands of low-revenue post offices and mail processing centers this year like the newly named Mack Robinson Center as part of a billion-dollar cost-cutting effort to become profitable again by 2015. But Pasaden ais worried about the economic impact and tens of thousands of layoffs, drawing the concerns of lawmakers in an election year.
Late last year, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe agreed to delay closings until May 15 so that Congress would have time to pass legislation to shore up the agency’s finances.
The bill being debated on the Senate floor this week was recently modified to take into account the concerns of mostly rural states. For instance, it would:
-Cut in half the number of mail processing centers the Postal Services currently wants to close — from 252 to 125 — allowing more U.S. areas to maintain overnight first-class mail delivery for at least three more years. Currently there are roughly 500 mail processing centers.
-Slow if not stop many post office closings by forcing the agency to consider the special needs of rural communities and undergo additional layers of regulatory approval. For instance, the Postal Service might have to downsize rather than close facilities, or factor in whether rural residents might have poor Internet service or have to travel longer road distances should a post office close.
-Require the Postal Service to wait at least two years before it could reduce mail delivery to five days a week, a cut that is being urged by the Obama administration and that could save between $2 billion and $3 billion a year.
According to the Associated Press, the Senate measure “does not rule out some cutbacks in services or post offices, but it would require USPS to exhaust all other options beforehand and ensure that its decisions are based on sound planning,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., a bill co-sponsor.
“We believe this approach offers the best hope for stabilizing the Postal Service and putting it on solid footing long-term, without dramatic and perhaps self-defeating cutbacks in service,” he said.
The Senate planned to debate the measure for the next several days. The House has yet to begin consideration of a different version of a postal bill, which seeks in part to create a national commission that would make major decisions on postal cuts.
