Bulk mail customers learn more about Cape Girardeau postal distribution facility closing

Bulk mail customers in Cape Girardeau learned more about how the U.S. Postal Service plans to change the way it processes mail Tuesday during a meeting at the Osage Centre.

Last month, the postal service confirmed its plans to close Cape Girardeau's Richard G. Wilson Processing and Distribution Facility, which employs about 100 people.

It's part of a plan to save more than $2 billion by closing more than 200 mail processing centers. According to the postal service's Area Mail Processing feasibility study, consolidating the Cape Girardeau center's operations with the St. Louis distribution center will save the agency $3.8 million annually.

To accommodate the additional mail volume, remaining processing centers that now operate only during the overnight hours will begin 24-hour operations, explained Gail Hendrix, district manager with the U.S. Postal Service in Kansas City, Mo.

"It will be continuous production in our plants, versus idle daytime and hard production nighttime," Hendrix said.

Mail with a final destination farther away from the plant where it is processed will be handled first, she said.

Mail dropped off in Cape Girardeau will be processed in St. Louis the next morning between 8 a.m. and noon, she said.

Many bulk mail customers in Cape Girardeau have been enjoying the privilege of overnight mail delivery while paying standard mail prices, but this will no longer be the case, Hendrix said. Standard mail's delivery time is two to five days, depending on the kind of postal facility where it is dropped off, she said.

Bulk mail customers won't see any immediate changes in the hours the bulk mail entry unit at the Cape Girardeau distribution center is open or to the rates they pay, Hendrix said.

The bulk mail distribution center, in an office attached to the distribution facility, will continue to be open from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and bulk mailers sending pieces in the ZIP codes starting with 636, 637, 638 and 639 will continue to receive Destination Sectional Center Facility discounts they once feared would go away when the processing center closed.

However, Hendrix said any of this could change with 120 days' notice to commercial mailers.

"We're going to work with mailers in transition. We are going to get a gauge on what's actually coming in at a closed plant after it closes to determine what needs to change if anything," Hendrix said.

Mark Guilliams, owner of Premium Regional Mail, a direct mail business in Jackson, said there's no question his costs are going to go up.

"I'm trying to figure out if I have to hire a trucking company to take my mail to St. Louis or take it myself," he said.

The times trucks will leave Cape Girardeau to take mail to St. Louis are not yet known, Hendrix said, but for larger customers, like Premium Regional Mail, with a Customer/Supplier Agreement, these transportation times will be modified individually once truck routes are confirmed.

Hendrix said the decision to close the mail processing center is tied to a change in the service standard for first-class mail -- lengthening it from one-to-two-day delivery to two-to-three-day delivery.

While the postal service is awaiting a recommendation from the Postal Regulatory Commission on this change, the commission's opinion is not binding, Hendrix said.

Once the distribution center in Cape Girardeau is closed, the postal service will do a study to determine what to do with its excess space here, she said. It could bring carriers to the distribution center facility or consolidate operations downtown. There are some advantages to both the post office and bulk mailers because of the dock facilities at the distribution center, she said.

"We have two buildings and we will have excess capacity. We will have to look at them from a mailer standpoint. We'll watch that traffic," she said.

Members of American Postal Workers Union Cape Area Local 4088 who attended Tuesday's meeting said they are still optimistic that Congress may act to prevent the proposed closures.

"All Congress has to do is insert this language into any bill," said Greg Davidson, APWU Local 4088 president.

A group of more than 20 senators, including Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, is pushing for legislation to keep postal facilities open. The senators' plan would relieve the agency of the requirement that it put $5.5 billion a year into a retiree health care account by reducing that amount to between $3 billion and $3.5 billion.

Davidson points to other distribution center consolidations in Memphis and Baltimore, that resulted in lengthy delays in mail delivery.

"Everywhere they've tried doing this already, it's been a total disaster," he said.

The Inspector General is looking into problems with delayed mail after closing the Frederick, Md., Processing and Distribution Facility, Davidson said.

Hendrix said the Postal Service has agreed to wait until May 15 before taking any action on its plans in order to give Congress time to to enact an alternate plan.

mmiller@semissourian.com

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