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Palin fights for bypass mail to help Native villages
Alaska Dispatch ^ | Mar 3, 2009

Posted on 03/04/2009 9:51:02 AM PST by curth

Say what you want about former senator and convicted felon Ted Stevens, but The Hulk did plenty for rural Alaska over his 40 years in the Senate, including establishing a complex system to subsidize air travel in the state's remote communities. Called bypass mail, the Postal Service in effect helps keep costs down for small airlines and their passengers to the villages as it regularly delivers mail to communities.

But now there are concerns that rate increases, set to take effect May 11, could impact the bypass mail system.

In a letter Tuesday, Gov. Sarah Palin urged Postmaster General John Potter not to increase parcel post and bypass mail rates, which not only impact mail but also the cost of providing air service in rural Alaska, along with shipping food and other essentials to Native villages.

Here is some of what Palin had to say: "Alaska has more than 258 airports serving as the primary mode of transportation, and the only means of access for more than 160 remote and isolated communities. Our rural residents have been besieged by a poor subsistence harvest and high energy prices compounded by an exceptionally cold winter. Although it may not be the intent, the new 4th class mail rate structure will raise the already high cost of living further and effectively cripple the already fragile bypass mail system.

(Excerpt) Read more at alaskadispatch.com ...


TOPICS: Politics
KEYWORDS: alaska; mail; palin

1 posted on 03/04/2009 9:51:02 AM PST by curth
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To: curth

Very rarely is Sarah Palin not on her game and not up on what is going on in the real world.


2 posted on 03/04/2009 9:58:41 AM PST by techno
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To: curth

So to hide the actual cost of transporting someone to the middle of nowhere, one only needs to mail a letter to that place, then hop on the plane with the mail sack, and users of the postal service gets to pay a good portion of the bill?

Sounds like liberal ideology to me. If Alaska wants to use it’s oil money to foot that bill, it’s none of my concern. But when the rest of us get to pay for a choice, that’s where it starts becoming my business. While such things might become a sudden shock, hey, if you’re living out in the middle of the tundra, you really should be able to live out on the tundra without payments and support from outside. If you can’t, time to move on.


3 posted on 03/04/2009 10:02:10 AM PST by kingu (Party for rent - conservative opinions not required.)
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To: curth

I live in one of those remote Alaskan villages. She’s right. We are gouged by UPS and Fed Ex. A $2.00 part costs $32.00 in shipping from them. If we lose the USPO mail services due to budget cuts and higher costs, we will be back to the days of one mail day a month at a huge cost without regular airplane flights in and out of our villages. As it is, we don’t have mail delivery like most cities are accustomed. We in the villiges never have. You go to the post office or local mail distributor to get your mail. Some times out of the mail bag itself from the plane that delivered it who takes your mail back with him/her.


4 posted on 03/04/2009 10:07:10 AM PST by Integrityrocks
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To: kingu

Kingu. You’ve got it wrong. We don’t ever get to get a free seat on the mail plane. We pay dearly for that seat, but the plane wouldn’t be going that way at all if we lose the mail service. The mail contract is what keeps the carriers flying a regular flight into the villages. Some get 5 mail planes a week depending on the weather. Mostly we get one mail plane a week, which is the plane you can PAY for a seat on.


5 posted on 03/04/2009 10:09:34 AM PST by Integrityrocks
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To: Integrityrocks
We are gouged by UPS and Fed Ex. A $2.00 part costs $32.00 in shipping from them

I am not sure gouged is the right word. It costs them a lot more to bring it to a remote village in the middle of no where. You can't expect to pay the same prices as if you lived in Manhattan where the cost of the plane is shared with another 100,000 people who sent packages there as well. As private businesses they don't owe you anything.

6 posted on 03/04/2009 10:20:21 AM PST by nameless-fool
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To: Integrityrocks

I didn’t say a free seat, I said a reduced cost seat, subsidized by everyone else’s use of the mail. I’m glad that you want to support the program, since you benefit from it, but how about instead these villages start paying the carriers to fly there, and the mail stop subsidizing it?

If it’s something the villages can’t afford, then maybe it’s time to re-think living there. I don’t see why the rest of us should pay for the choices made by those who choose to live in the middle of nowhere.


7 posted on 03/04/2009 10:21:00 AM PST by kingu (Party for rent - conservative opinions not required.)
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To: kingu

Major urban centers around the world are glutted with shantytowns built by rural peo-ple who could no longer survive on subsistence farming/hunting/gathering. Their plight is no better today than it was in the wilderness.
It is better to provide a modicum of service to enable rural people to remain on the land. Failure to provide roughly comparable basic services to rural people is unfair and short sighted.


8 posted on 03/04/2009 11:50:15 AM PST by Louis Foxwell (He is the son of soulless slavers, not the son of soulful slaves.)
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