For months, the U.S. Postal Service has announced post-office and processing-center closures in mostly rural communities as a way to get out of billions of dollars in debt. Much has been said about how these closures will affect rural residents' mail-order prescriptions, bills and business; however, mail processing centers closures have been less discussed and some advocates say the impact on weekly newspaper circulation would be dire.
Save the Post Office, a website owned and operated by literature professor Steve Hutkins of the Gallatin School of New York University, reports the Postal Service admits consolidation of processing centers will slow mail delivery, but aren't revealing the severity of the situation. "One thirty-year-veteran mail clerk ... said the closure of the processing center would result in 'massive mail failings,' and would be a killer for weekly newspapers, which could be delayed several days. If that happens, he said, 'You start producing a history, not a newspaper.'" The impact would be primarily on newspapers mailed outside the paper's home county, since they can deliver papers to local post offices for direct delivery.
Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg writes in the Whitefish Pilot that he's "fighting hard" against processing center closures because "timely news and announcements, and the latest sale at the local hardware store, are important to a community’s vitality..." He said he's delivered thousands of comments from Montanans to the Postal Service and spoken with the U.S. Postmaster General Pat Donahoe about how closures would negatively affect rural places. "Rural communities shouldn’t have to shoulder the majority of the burden in getting the post office back in the black," he writes. (Read more)
Save the Post Office, a website owned and operated by literature professor Steve Hutkins of the Gallatin School of New York University, reports the Postal Service admits consolidation of processing centers will slow mail delivery, but aren't revealing the severity of the situation. "One thirty-year-veteran mail clerk ... said the closure of the processing center would result in 'massive mail failings,' and would be a killer for weekly newspapers, which could be delayed several days. If that happens, he said, 'You start producing a history, not a newspaper.'" The impact would be primarily on newspapers mailed outside the paper's home county, since they can deliver papers to local post offices for direct delivery.
Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg writes in the Whitefish Pilot that he's "fighting hard" against processing center closures because "timely news and announcements, and the latest sale at the local hardware store, are important to a community’s vitality..." He said he's delivered thousands of comments from Montanans to the Postal Service and spoken with the U.S. Postmaster General Pat Donahoe about how closures would negatively affect rural places. "Rural communities shouldn’t have to shoulder the majority of the burden in getting the post office back in the black," he writes. (Read more)
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