More than 150 attend town hall meeting on possible postal plant closure

Nineteen-year-old Austin Holmes was looking forward to a long career with the U.S. Postal Service. But a month after he started working at the Richard G. Wilson Processing and Distribution Facility in Cape Girardeau, the facility was identified as one of 252 across the nation being studied for closure.

He told postal officials during a town hall meeting Thursday at the Osage Centre now he and the 100 or so other employees at the mail processing center are "walking in the dark."

"Everybody I talked to, my family, my friends, said this would be a good company to get into young, with good benefits, I could retire early. Now, I bought a truck, I have payments to make; I don't know if I should be looking for a new job, or looking into college or the military," he said. "I just need to know something."

Holmes and several other current and retired postal employees were among more than 150 people who attended the meeting where people spoke for more than two hours urging the Postal Service not to close Cape Girardeau's distribution center.

According to the Postal Service's Area Mail Processing feasibility study, consolidating the Cape Girardeau center's operations with the St. Louis distribution center would save the agency $3.8 million annually and eliminate 71 jobs. About 28 workers will be given the opportunity to relocate to the St. Louis facility, which already has the capacity to absorb additional mail, said Richard Watkins, U.S. Postal Service spokesman.

The proposed closure of 252 mail processing centers would coincide with lengthening the delivery standard for first-class mail. Currently, first-class letters mailed within the local area are delivered in one to three days, but the Postal Service is seeking to change that delivery standard to two to three days.

Bulk mail customers, including many churches and not-for-profit organizations, will no longer qualify for a discount if the distribution center closes, postal officials said.

Mark Guilliams, owner of Direct Line Marketing and Premium Regional Mail in Jackson, said losing the discount offered to mailers who take their mail directly to a distribution center will result in an additional cost of 4.3 cents per piece for his bulk mail customers.

With the Postal Service raising its first-class mail rates by one cent to 45 cents beginning Jan. 22, Guilliams said he didn't understand how the Postal Service could charge more and then take longer to deliver the mail.

"What business can raise its rates and then say the quality is going to be less? No business can operate like that," he said.

If the distribution centers are closed and delivery time is lengthened, the Postal Service will drive customers away, said Herman "Sonny" Bodenstein, a retired 25-year postal worker and co-owner of Toni's Flower House.

"This will be the destruction of the post office," Bodenstein said.

Thursday's meeting was the second in a four-step study process, said Gail Hendrix, district manager with the Postal Service in Kansas City, Mo.

People may mail written comments about the center's closing until Jan. 13 to Manager, Consumer and Industry Contact, Mid-America District, 300 W. Pershing Road, Suite 207, Kansas City, MO 64108-9631.

Once the comments from the meeting and those submitted in writing are compiled, they will be sent to Denver for review and then on to USPS headquarters in Washington, D.C., where the final decision whether to close the facility will be made by May 15, Hendrix said.

mmiller@semissourian.com

388-3646

Pertinent address:

555 Independence St., Cape Girardeau, MO