Residents Sound-Off On USPS Plan At Public Hearing
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In a move it says will save money, the United States Postal Service is proposing carting mail off Staten Island to Brooklyn to be sorted, then bringing it back to the borough for delivery, but the plan is not sitting well with residents. NY1's Amanda Farinacci filed the following report. The expression "the mail must go through" may take on new meaning for residents on Staten Island, if the United States Postal Service has its way.
The agency is proposing a change that would mean mail sent from Staten Island is first sent to Brooklyn for sorting and then sent back to Staten Island for delivery.
Wednesday night a public hearing was held to give residents a chance to weigh in on the plan.
"This business of trucking the mail to Brooklyn and back again, it's not a good idea," said resident Shirley Blunt.
The plan now being studied could save the USPS nearly $2 million, and the agency says Staten Island is a good location to consolidate processing because only eight percent of mail sent from Staten Island is actually delivered back to Staten Island.
Last year, the national mail volume was down by more than nine-billion pieces and officials expect it to decrease by 12 to 15 billion this year.
Still, local leaders worry that bringing the mail to Brooklyn, a nearly 22-mile journey from the Manor Road facility currently being used to the East New York processing center, will cause service delays because of the inevitable traffic.
"It's kind of counter-intuitive to take Staten Island mail to be processed in another borough to be brought back to Staten Island to be delivered," said City Councilman James Oddo.
Postal service representatives say there are no immediate plans for closing the Manor Road facility, but could make no guarantees for the future. And that has postal workers worried.
Thirty-four mail-handlers currently work to sort out the mail, and those workers have been told they will not be laid off if the plan moves forward, but rather placed in new positions on Staten Island. The head of their union is uneasy about the impact of the change on his workers and on mail delivery.
"It's definitely going to slow down efficiency and the personal attention that customers get across the island," said Vinny Sapone of the National Postal Mail Handlers Union. "It's definitely going to have an effect with the mail volume."
Still, the USPS says the issue is still under review, and it will not release the results of its study for several months.