Postal officials quash practice of banning photos and recording at meetings on post-office closings

The U.S. Postal Service has adopted "an open door policy allowing attendees to conduct non-disruptive photography and audiovisual recording at community discontinuance meetings," reports Steve Hutkins of Save the Post Office, a website providing information about post-office closings and consolidations. (Still from video of the DeWitt, Ky., meeting recorded by Eddie Arnold of the Barbourville Mountain Advocate)

The announcement comes following a formal inquiry by Ruth Goldway, chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission, to USPS. The service has confirmed at least 14 instances where restrictions against video, audio or photography were enforced during meetings on possible post-office discontinuances in Missouri, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and Kentucky, Hutkins reports.

At a community meeting in Success, Mo., USPS operatives "told those attending they could not record audio, video or take pictures or they would call the meeting to an end," Brad Gentry of The Houston Herald reported. "Needless to say, it wasn’t exactly a friendly way to greet patrons concerned about losing the community’s identity with the closing of their post office. . . . As the meeting closed, our Herald representative snapped a crowd shot and was later greeted by a plainclothes U.S. postal inspector who flashed his badge and asked for a meeting in a hallway." For a page PDF with Gentry's column, click here.

For a good story by Calen McKinney of the Central Kentucky News-Journal on a meeting about the post office in Mannsville, Ky., click here (free trial subscription may be required). One interesting angle to the story is the effort by Lebanon, Ky., lawyer Elmer George to save the post office, backed up by a detailed PowerPoint presentation, downloadable here.

The Postal Service's reply to the inquiry said postal regulations preclude taping of meetings by postal officials, but not by community members during community meetings, Hutkins reports. The new policy allows community members to make recordings, but charges local personnel with maintaining order and preventing disruptions. (Read more)