Postal Service plans to keep rural post offices, cut hours

Los Angeles Times ^ | May 9, 2012, 6:43 p.m. | Ian Duncan, Washington Bureau

[Olog-hai]

The U.S. Postal Service backed off from a proposal to close thousands of rural post offices, opting instead to cut opening hours in a bid to stem devastating financial losses.

The postal service estimates that the new plan will save $500 million a year once it is fully implemented in 2014. The previous proposal would have closed more than 3,000 rural post offices to save $200 million a year.

Under the plan outlined Wednesday, 13,167 post offices will open for two to six hours a day. A spokeswoman for the postal service said that no community would be required to close its post office, although they could chose to do so and opt instead for home delivery.

"We've listened to our customers in rural America and we've heard them loud and clear. They want to keep their post office open," Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said in a statement. "We believe today's announcement will serve our customers' needs and allow us to achieve real savings to help the Postal Service return to long-term financial stability."

The plan for shorter hours has to be reviewed by the Postal Regulatory Commission. Communities will be invited to respond before opening hours are changed.

The postal service loses $25 million a day and in February published a comprehensive plan to restore itself to profitability, which included measures to eliminate Saturday delivery.

The Senate last month passed legislation that would curb those plans, delaying a decision on Saturday delivery for at least two years and making it harder to close post offices, particularly in rural areas.

The Senate plan would refund $11 billion the postal service overpaid into a federal retirement benefits account, and let the service use the money to encourage as many as 100,000 workers to take buyouts. …

[GeronL]

Here is an idea.

Use the periodical sorting machines we all paid for and fire those unionized or non-unionized people who aren’t needed.

[BooBoo1000]

This is the problem with the Senators. They refuse to do the thing that is needed. Cut those little looser Post Offices off Period/ The Senate kick the can down the road, not settling anything, just keep on allowing the problem to fester and get worse. Do not vote for any incumbent.

[GeronL]

The liberal media can have their junk on my lawn/driveway/gutter at 6AM, but the Post Office doesn’t get here until 3PM. How about we retrain the dying newspaper companies to deliver the mail?

[cripplecreek]

They don’t want to mess with the overstaffed urban post offices. My post office has 1 full time worker and one unneeded part timer they ship 70 miles from Detroit for 4 hours on Santurday (And she’s worthless)

Our Rural driver works out of 3 different offices.

Personally I’d cut Saturday and lose the big sorting offices and let UPS handle delivery to the rural offices. UPS and FedEx deliver to the post office here most of the time anyway.

[af_vet_rr]

These two things don't seem to mix:

"We've listened to our customers in rural America and we've heard them loud and clear. They want to keep their post office open," Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said in a statement. "We believe today's announcement will serve our customers' needs and allow us to achieve real savings to help the Postal Service return to long-term financial stability."

The Senate last month passed legislation that would curb those plans, delaying a decision on Saturday delivery for at least two years and making it harder to close post offices, particularly in rural areas.

How in the Hell is the Post Office supposed to save money if Congress steps in and prevents them from closing post offices where they lose money??????

People want the Post Office run like a business, but most businesses don't have Congressional critters stepping in and telling them what stores they can't close or what hours they have to keep.

You have to give credit to the folks living in rural areas - they made themselves heard by their Congressional critters, and their Congressional critters stepped in to protect their post offices. Too bad they are screwing things up for the rest of us.

[bigbob]

Spineless.

It is absolutely necessary to cut those offices and facilities and go to a reduced delivery schedule to make the USPS competitive...yet they won’t do it. Who besides the unions would be behind such a brain-dead move?

[Viking2002]

My mother and I have been e-mailing each other at length this evening in regards to the relative third-teat status of the USPS, and why. I sent her a Mother's Day gift via priority mail, and they're been screwing the pooch every step of the way.

"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

--H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

[allmost]

They have their hands tied. The USPS needs a retirement ‘cushion’ that is, to my knowledge, more stringent than any other on the planet.

[GeronL]

Yep. They have no real incentive to improve much and they know it.

[OldPossum]

Cut those little looser Post Offices...

I just don't understand why so many Freepers have a problem understanding the difference between "lose" and "loose" and yheir derivatives.

To save you the trouble of looking it up, the word you are looking for is "loser."

[Blue Ink]

This is a good decision. It would be a bad move to close rural post offices. We shouldn’t be making it harder for Americans to live in small towns and out in the country.

And of course, the Post Office is unprofitable. It’s not supposed to make money. It’s exactly like the Federal Highway System, which doesn’t make money either, and yet you don’t hear people proposing we shut down I-40.

And if you insist on profit, think about how the Post Office has paid off in ways you don’t think about. It’s one of the ways we grew to be the greatest economy the world has ever seen.

The Post Office is one of the few things that government should do.

Could it be run more efficiently? Sure. But that’s separate issue.

[JediJones]

They need to close a lot of post offices in PA. We have more of them than Subways. They seem to have been geographically placed based on the horse and buggy era. Anyone with a car can easily drive to the main post office within a few minutes, but they’ll pass several “satellite” ones along the way that I really doubt need to be there.

[bray]

Must be from all that money they made from paying workers $30K to retire.

Pray for America

[Viking2002]

It's aggravating. They need either massive reform, or privatization, but in this inverse, bass-ackwards universe we currently live in, speaking common sense and definitive action to the problem is akin to threatening genocide against a protected species.

"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

--H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

[GeronL]

It’d be easier to start with a blank canvass than try to “fix” the problems with government, post office, schools etc etc

[Blue Ink]

I don’t object to closing “satellite” duplicate offices close to each other.

I object to closing the only post office in a small town or rural county.

[tcrlaf]

The post office has a constitutional obligation to deliever the mails, but let’s face it, times have changed. I live in a rural area, but have SEVERAL post offices with a ten-minute drive in almost any direction.

They could be consolidated without the slightest of problems. And don’t get me started on the leasing scam for some of these places.

[cherry]

are they going to have to pay for full time employees for those 2 to 6 hrs that the PO is open?....

[Rembrandt]

“I just don’t understand why so many Freepers have a problem understanding the difference between “lose” and “loose” and yheir derivatives.

To save you the trouble of looking it up, the word you are looking for is “loser.” “

---

Thank yew, OP!