postalnews blog

Nothing, really. It helps, of course, to talk about tragedy, but nothing anyone can say will make sense of last night’s tragedy in California. What hit me when I saw the pictures of the shooting victims in the Link today was how ordinary they looked- how normal. They look no different than the people you or I work with every day. And then, in an instant, before most of us had ever seen their faces or known their names, they were gone forever.

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Given last night’s tragedy in California, not something that will get much attention, but the Rockford Register Star reports that the postal service has agreed to reconsider moving mail processing operations out of Rockford at the behest of the city’s Congressman, Don Manzullo.

What that means is anybody’s guess, given that no formal decision had been announced. It makes you wonder what kind of ‘reform’ we’re in for down the road, though. If Congressmen are now going to make logisitical decisions for the USPS, how long will it be until they start selecting Postmasters again?

More on the endangered postmark of Rockford, Illinois:

According to the Associated Press, Congressman Don Manzullo, who aims “to deter the U.S. Postal Service from a move that he says would endanger the postmark of the largest city in his Illinois district, threatened Monday to hold congressional hearings if he does not prevail.”

You have to read a couple of paragraphs further to get to this: “Critics also argue Rockford could lose more than 50 jobs at its processing and distribution center if the change were to occur, and Manzullo said the delivery of outgoing Rockford mail could run days beyond the usual schedule.”

Just a thought- maybe jobs and service are the real story? And here’s another- did anyone ask the Congressman why moving the processing 60 miles would delay mail “days beyond the usual schedule.”? Thousands of post offices across the country are 60 or more miles from the processing plants that service them. (Are the roads in the Congressman’s district so bad that it takes “days” to travel 60 miles?)

And it might also be helpful if a reporter asked what exactly would happen to the 50 employees whose jobs might be “lost”. Career postal employees don’t get laid off. If their jobs are moved more than 50 miles, they are eligible for relocation benefits. If there are other vacancies closer to home, they have the option of applying for them. Neither option is necessarily going to be a pleasant transition, but either is better than being laid off.

Another day, another news story about rescuing an endangered postmark: “Local union leaders and Rep. Don Manzullo are heading into a meeting with top postal officials Tuesday in Washington, determined that Rockford will keep its postmark.” The story in today’s Rockford, Illinois Register-Star is similar to recent stories from Olympia Washington, and Sioux City, Iowa.

In each case, as with all of the possible plant consolidations being discussed, there are real issues about productivity, jobs and service. But what is it about postmarks? Why is Tom Harkin worried about “the elimination of the 150 year old postmark of this proud and vibrant city”? Why is the state of Washington concerned about letters from the state capital being postmarked ‘Olympia/Tacoma’ instead of ‘Olympia’?

I’ve read all the stories, and I have to confess, it’s still a mystery to me. Consider a few facts. In the first place, virtually all governmental and commercial mail is paid for not by the use of postage stamps which need to be cancelled, but by meter stamps or permit imprints, which don’t. Meter and permit indicia usually bear the name of the post office they were entered at. So most mail from the state of Washington, and any other business in Olympia is still going to say Olympia in the indicia, regardless of where it gets processed.

Here’s another fact- the postal service operates about 38,000 post offices nationwide. Each of them can, and does, apply a local postmark to some mail. (Probably 99 percent of it on April 15, when nervous tax filers insist on actually seeing the postmark before they’ll leave). But the vast majority of stamped mail gets cancelled in one of just 200 or so processing centers across the country. Mail a letter from Sioux City and it gets postmarked “Sioux City”. Mail a letter from Ponca, or any of a hundred or more towns around Sioux City and it gets postmarked “Sioux City”. Why isn’t Tom Harkin worried about the lack of a Ponca postmark?

More to the point, who actually looks at a postmark? Virtually all of the first class mail I receive has a meter or permit imprint. The few pieces a month that I send out with a stamp affixed are usually bill payments, that get sliced open by a machine at the other end. They are not opened by spinster ladies with green eyeshades who exclaim “Why Emma look! This one’s from Sioux City! Imagine!” So if the sender never gets to see the 150 year old postmark, and the recipient is a machine, what are we really losing here?

One last point- the “150 year old Sioux City postmark” sounds like something carefully imprinted from the original hand engraved die. The reality is a little less romantic- most postmarks these days are sprayed from inkjet print heads. Hard to see how that qualifies them for the National Historic Register.

Lets get over the concern about postmarks, and start talking about the real issues!

The Postal Service’s motive to kill postal reform, which has been increasingly apparent for months, became patently obvious this week. The USPS strategy: score a quick KO on postal reform by suggesting that the Senate’s postal reform bill – poised for approval any time now – will cause postal rates to rise by at least twenty cents and blow the roof off.

The Postal Service’s clever scheme, though, didn’t quite work out. Instead of bringing down the bill, USPS blew its cover, and those who were once its biggest allies on Capitol Hill were hit by USPS’ friendly fire.

Fast on the heels of Tuesday’s Governors’ letter opposing the Senate postal reform measure came two Postal Service press releases yesterday that collectively misrepresented and distorted the Senate postal reform measure and the bipartisan efforts of its champions, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), and Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE). Collins chairs the Senate committee that oversees the Postal Service and Carper is a leading Democrat on the committee.

The Postal Service’s WMD-like claim that stamp prices will go through the roof if postal reform occurs relies in large part upon the assumption that the postal CSRS military service obligation will remain with the Postal Service, and not return to the Treasury.

Yet, the Collins-Carper postal reform bill returns the military retirement payment obligation to the Treasury and saves the Postal Service billions of dollars. Both Collins and her House counterpart, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), have repeatedly opposed the Administration’s notion of continuing to stick USPS with the military retirement obligation.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the Postal Service misfired, and misfired badly, in sending a 59-cent stamp aboard a heat-seeking missile aimed at the Senate. And unfortunately, the longer-term repercussions of that failed strike for the Postal Service may well last beyond postal reform. Lawmakers have memories as long as those proverbially possessed by elephants.

The House and Senate postal reform measures are not perfect, far from it. But, considering the long-term prognosis for the Postal Service, the need for a revamped postal statutory framework, and the enormous number of postal interests, the House and Senate postal measures are more than pretty darn good.

Once the Senate passes its bill, the ultimate test of postal reform will depend on what emerges from the bargaining and compromising that goes on behind closed doors in the conference to hammer out a final compromise between the House and Senate measures. After this week, the Postal Service’s capacity to be a trusted, credible player in those conference talks was hurt and hurt badly.

Postcom’s web site suggests that “some movement may have been made by the principals in the dispute involving S. 662 to permit the bill to come to the Senate floor for consideration.

Elsewhere, James Ridgeway writes in the Village Voice that Roy Blunt, the likely successor to Tom Delay as House Majority Leader, has received more than $125,000 in campaign contributions from UPS and FedEx. Blunt returned the favor by “sticking a proviso into the Iraq emergency appropriations bill… meant to block foreign competitors of UPS and FedEx from getting a toehold in the profitable wartime postal business”.

The Washington Post reports that the Magazine Publishers Association’s efforts to thwart a rate increase in 2001 may be central to any prosecution of Tom Delay or others involved in the Abramoff scandal:

“The Abramoff plea agreement’s focus on the postal rate increase and Internet gambling bill signals that federal investigators are turning up the heat on [Tom Delay’s Assistant Chief of Staff Tony C.] Rudy and his wife, possibly with DeLay as an eventual target, said Stanley M. Brand, a former general counsel to the House, who described DeLay’s legal problems as “extreme.”

“The U.S. Postal Service had proposed a 15 percent increase, triggering a fight from the magazine industry. With a lobbying contract worth millions, Preston Gates put its heavyweights on the team, including Abramoff, and then directed the MPA to make its $25,000 contribution to Toward Tradition, headed by Lapin, a longtime friend of Abramoff’s.

“On May 1, 2000, the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call quoted Rudy as saying, “We’re planning to do all we can so that the postmaster general sticks to his word” and reduces the rate increase. By December, the magazine publishers were claiming victory: The rate increase that went into effect in January 2001 was considerably smaller.

“The case could be significant for investigators, Brand said. Federal prosecutors need only prove there was an agreement to pursue official action in exchange for favors, and the Abramoff plea repeatedly states that such agreements existed. But juries often want to see that the action took place, and in the postal rate episode, that would be clear.”

Not really postal, but this one was too good not to mention: 

This week Judicial Watch proclaimed that the whole Abramoff scandal (which it refers to as a ‘bipartisan’ scandal- guess it all depends on what your definition of ‘bi’ is) was Bill Clinton’s fault!

“The Clinton administration set a low mark for bribery and abuse of the public trust.  In the face of all this lawbreaking, the Justice Department, under Janet Reno, simply refused to enforce the law.  As a result, too many Republicans thought they could imitate the Clinton gang’s flouting of the bribery laws.”

The shock- innocent little Jacky Abramoff really was such a good boy until he started seeing what those nasty Democrat boys were getting away with! Who can blame him! Or the GOP politicians who sold their votes to him!

It’s like a Goofus and Gallant story gone horribly wrong!

The Palm Springs Desert News reports that Jack Abramoff’s plea agreement mentions efforts on behalf of the Agua Caliente band of Indians to move the Palm Springs Post Office from its current location to make way for an expansion of the tribe’s casino.

According to the paper, Abramoff’s plea agreement included “reference to action with a member of Congress, a Native American tribal client and a California tribe lobbyist to assist… with an issue relating to a post office of interest to the California tribe. [Current band chairman Richard] Milanovich said last week that the tribe had been working with the federal government to try to move the Palm Springs Post Office from 333 E. Amado Road, so the tribe could make more room to rebuild the Spa Resort Casino.”

The Palm Springs Post Office is located on land leased from the Indian band. In a September 2004 story, the Riverside Press Enterprise reported that the USPS paid annual rent of $24,000 a year on the site, with a lease that “doesn’t expire until 2018″.

“Let the games begin! We’re really fired up.”

- Magazine Publishers of America President Nina B. Link

The quote comes from an interview Link gave to the Washington Post on March 23, 2000, after signing a $10 million contract with the lobbying firm of Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds. The money was to fund a campaign to “stave off the latest proposed postage increase and fight for legislation to change the postal system… the Preston Gates team includes… Jack Abramoff, who is close to the GOP House leadership”

Maybe a little too close?

Stay tuned…