Post offices nationwide have typically served two purposes: retail in the front and carrier operations in the back. Though some small offices in rural areas may have only a few or no carriers, larger towns and cities, as well as stations and branches of large post offices, more frequently have both.
As Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has advanced his 10-Year Plan, one element has been the consolidation of carriers from multiple post offices into a single facility – a Sorting and Delivery Center – that would have distribution equipment for anticipated package volume and, outside, charging stations for new electric delivery vehicles.
Obviously, removing carrier operations from a post office results in a significant amount of vacant space, but the USPS has been less than transparent about its true plans for what to do with that excess room. Instead, in an effort to prevent customer complaints or associated political issues, the agency has sought to assure local officials that retail service will not be impacted.
For example, in its January 13 Industry Alert about the opening of twelve new S&DCs (see the next page), the agency stated “The opening of the new S&DCs will not impose Post Office closures or cause customers to experience changes to the local Post Office retail and PO Box delivery services.” (Such an assurance has been used before; read on.)
Whether the Postal Service’s categorical statement is in line with actual events is another matter, as two reports by Save the Post Office illustrate.
Examples
Last June, the Postal Service moved 31 carrier routes and the associated letter carriers from the Sherwood Carrier Annex in Topeka (KS) to the new S&DC at the Topeka P&DC facility, about five miles away as the crow flies.
Though nominally a “carrier annex,” the facility was classified on the USPS Post Office locator as a “post office” with listed lobby hours to access PO boxes or call for held mail. However, when the carriers left, the USPS decided to close the vacated building and so posted a notice advising customers to visit another facility a few miles away.
Responding to local media questions about the closure, the USPS stated it was part of the PMG’s 10-Year Plan but that “customers will not see changes to local post office retail operations.” Moreover, the Postal Service added,” No post offices will be closed and PO Box service will not be changed.”
Somehow, the Sherwood Carrier Annex, though described by the USPS as a “post office,” wasn’t a post office when it suited the agency, and the relocation of the facility’s PO Box service wasn’t really a “change.”
Another example is the “relocation” of the Tropical Reef station in Pompano Beach (FL) after its 91 carrier routes were moved to a new S&DC seven miles away. The building has over 48,400 square feet, but most of it is vacant now that the carriers have left.
Consequently, as reported January 11 by Save the Post Office, the USPS has decided to move the retail operation somewhere else, and is seeking about 5,000 square feet within a mile of the station. However, doing so will remove the postal presence from downtown, now represented by the station, as Pompano Beach’s main post office is actually about three miles west.
Though it makes good business sense to shed an unnecessary building whose lease cost Save the Post Office reported to be about $450,000 per year, the Pompano Beach situation illustrates the inherent contradiction between capturing such savings while living up to the promise that customers won’t “experience changes to the local Post Office retail and PO Box delivery services.”
As it did in Topeka, the Postal Service again must have creatively reinterpreted that moving something a mile away doesn’t “cause customers to experience changes to the local Post Office retail and PO Box delivery services.”
Reality vs publicity
Many of the initiatives associated with the PMG’s Plan have been developed in the insular realm of postal leadership, without any input from customers or mailers. As a result, significant changes are being implemented with no or minimal awareness – or concern – for how they’re impacting how customers “experience” service.
Meanwhile, the Postal Service’s expert publicists craft stories that shine the best possible light on the agency’s actions. Whatever the USPS is doing, they claim, is necessary to help the agency achieve the goals prescribed by the 10-Year Plan – a document few among the general population have ever read, let alone chosen to support by quietly accepting reduced service.
Few would dispute the value of shedding costly space that’s vacated by changes in delivery operations, or that adjustments to the retail network are not sometimes appropriate. Rather than being candid and transparent, however, the Postal Service’s spinmeisters continue to try to convince people nothing is changing when that’s clearly not true.
It will be interesting to read how they spin future closings or relocations of a retail facility as not causing change to how customers “experience” service.
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