NJ Congressman blasts USPS for plans to close station
TweetWASHINGTON, July 15 — Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. (4th CD), issued the following news release:
Congressman Chris Smith today blasted the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) ill-conceived plan announced Monday that it intends to close the Freehold Downtown Station in the borough that serves over 25,000 people.
“The data is lacking and the timing suspect,” said Smith, who met with USPS officials in March. “It directly contradicts what they told a group of local leaders in a meeting we co-hosted in borough hall in March. Postal officials specifically promised that no decision would be made before they answered some basic inquiries about the costs of closure, and until they conducted a second meeting with community officials to discuss those costs. Those promises are being broken.”
Smith fired off a letter to the regional head of the USPS in Pittsburgh, Vice President of Operations Megan Brennan, requesting that she step in.
“The USPS needs to make good on its word and put off a final decision until it fulfills the commitment it made to the community,” Smith said.
USPS South Jersey District Manager Joe Diglio confirmed Monday that he plans to steer postal customers to the heavily used Freehold Township Post Office on County Road 537, which is 2.4 miles away to the west in the Raintree Towne Center. Residents from the eastern areas of Freehold Township would have an even longer drive. That center is extremely congested, with little parking available in a narrow, bottleneck configuration.
Borough Mayor Michael Wilson, speaking on behalf of the Freehold Governing Body, said he was appalled with the announced closure of the Freehold Downtown Post Office.
“This announcement lacks foresight and understanding of the greater Freehold area,” Wilson said. “It had been clearly conveyed to the appropriate postal authorities that Freehold Borough, the county seat, serves as the focal point of commerce, law, government, and social services for the entire County of Monmouth. Moreover, Freehold Borough has a significantly large amount of pedestrian traffic. I demand that the Post Office reconsider this action. The Freehold Postal Facility consists of nothing more than a trailer and is efficiently managed. I am unaware of any county seat in the State of New Jersey that does not have a post office!
“The news of the closure was solemn enough,” Wilson continued. “However, the method used to finalize the closure was equally bad. When we first met in March, there was a promise by postal officials for future meetings and dialogue on the planned consolidation order. Unfortunately, there were no more meetings, no telephone calls, no e-mails, and unanswered requests for meetings and updates. Their lack of responsiveness and cooperation clearly points to a complete abuse toward the citizens who avail themselves of this facility. They even lacked the common courtesy of advanced notice to Borough officials of the closure. I certainly appeal to the postal officials to reconsider this potentially disastrous decision.”
Freehold Township Mayor Anthony J. Ammiano, speaking on behalf of the Township Committee, expressed shock and anger over notification of the closing of Borough post office.
“At a March 2009 meeting, we were told no decision would be made until further discussions and meetings were held on the issue with representatives from the State, County, Freehold Borough, Freehold Center Partnership and the Township of Freehold,” Ammiano said. “This bad decision not only impacts the residents of Freehold Borough but also the 15,000 Freehold Township residents that live on the east side of the Township. This closing will add an additional 25,000 customers to the Raintree Postal facility. This plan, which was obviously based on economics, is bad for Freehold Borough and the residents of Freehold Township.”
The 800-square-foot Freehold Downtown Station facility has over 400 rented P.O. boxes, and has been open for nearly eight years on land provided free of charge by the county. It has a spacious parking lot, but is utilized by significant pedestrian traffic from the nearby county administration offices, the Superior Court complex and municipal offices, plus the businesses and offices along Main Street in a two-square mile town which has over 11,000 residents. Thousands of more residents of the eastern side of Freehold Township would have an even longer drive.
The proposal to close the Freehold Downtown Station and shifting its business to Freehold Township is a mistake, Smith said. It makes borough residents and employees from surrounding offices who now walk to the station drive a nearly five-mile trip to check their P.O. boxes or purchase stamps or services. The proposal puts a lot of cars on the road and sends them to an overcrowded, congested facility.
Smith noted that Freeholders Barbara McMorrow and Lillian Burry, State Sen. Jennifer Beck and Assembly Members Declan O’ Scanlon and Caroline Casagrande have also expressed concern about the proposal to close the Freehold Downtown Station.
He noted that in all of the 21 counties in New Jersey the town which hosts the county government has its own postal facility, some more than one. Additionally, more than one-third of those are in towns smaller than Freehold Borough, he said.
“Monmouth County is the fourth most populated county in the state, and Freehold Borough as its seat of government should have its own postal facility,” Smith said. “I think the postal service will lose a lot of customers if they follow through with this misguided proposal.”
July 15th, 2009 07:41
I guess “snail” mail is still pretty important to the majority of people.
July 15th, 2009 12:05
“The data is lacking and the timing suspect,” said Smith
Like the data for the cap and trade bill he voted for!!
July 15th, 2009 12:44
This is just an example of not in my back yard. The big picture is USPS is in the red and has its hands tied with union agreements settled by arbraitors and political influence of not being able to reduce costs by running the operations like a business. The alternative is to increase postal rates if cost cannot be cut the business/mail vol is no longer there. Today they are debating over 5 day delivery and other countries have gone down that path. Reality is we’ll probably be talking about 4 and 3 day delivery in the not to distant future if the trend continues with delcline mail vol.s and increased use of electronic bill pay and email. Something has to give.
No matter how it ends up looks like no one will be happy unless they want the government to subsidize with tax money USPS operations and then they will be able to complain about paying taxes.
July 15th, 2009 16:34
WAHHHHHH WAHHHHHHH
July 15th, 2009 22:16
imagine that!!! the usps did not keep up thier end of an agreement! everyone acts like this is somthing new. this is everyday business at the post office. this is the number 1 reason for labor unions!!! postal managment is the biggest bunch of two face liars ever seen!!! if the postal service would cut about 1/2 of the managers, and ALL of the managers BONUSES, they could operate in the black. its not the employees saleries that is hurting them,but the outragous bonuses they pay to managers. pmg pay package…..$800,000 yr….. FOR WHAT!!??? in our office we have 3 stupidvisors,and a postmaster to supervise less than 75 people. once the carriers leave to the street there is only 5 employees in the office with 3 stupidvisors and 1 postmaster.no street supervision at this office,so we have all this managment sitting around doing WHAT???
July 16th, 2009 09:22
It’s poor comments like the above that give the potal service the reputation it has now. Negativity does nothing for your position.
I would conceive that the Post Office is posturing because of congressional inaction. The postal leadership is tasked with operating in the black but congress and unions have got the cuffs on providing no real solutions or alternatives to initiatives put forth. A five day work week is a much easier solution but hey, you don’t want it so here’s the altrenative.
This is going to get real interesting, I beleive we haven’t seen the last of this issue.
July 17th, 2009 22:43
apparently you are NOT a postal employee, or are a stupidvisor, or blind. it doesn’t take a smart person very long to see that there is too much managment in the postal service to be obserdly rediculious!by the way i was not being negitive, what was said is the truth,too many managers!!!!when there is 3 stupidvisors and a level 22 postmaster to supervise 5 employee after the carriers go to street dont you think that is wastful? they do not do street supervision as they think this is a waste of time. real cost effective. huh?
July 24th, 2009 11:52
postaldude, Management can be faulted for thier part in this mess, but as a Steward and past president for over 10 years I’ve filed on behave of some members who were just flat out worthless. One carrier didn’t come to work but 2-3 weeks out of a year, claimed medical conditions, then was arrested in Florida while he was supposedly to ill to work.
I represented a carrier who for being arrested, DUI, drugs in the car, assaulting an officer, car chase across the county, etc. My NBA sent me a arbitration NALC won and the PO had to pay other carriers to drive this man around his route because he lost his license. Two times the pay to deliver one route because this man wants to drink and drive. While I believe in the basic ideas of the union, I think we’ve gone off the deep end. My nieghbor works for UPS, if they have a driver who doesn’t work up to standards, they protect the work ethic of all thier drivers who give “an honest days work for an honest dollar” and put that driver on notice. I think as employees of any company we have an obligation to uphold our standards and ensure everyone works to provide the service that puts money in our pockets.
July 28th, 2009 15:15
1st NALCstew-ups is teamsters union they have it better than usps unions they allow alot worse
As for everything else why are there less window clerks and longer lines???? that helps how????
People hate to wait will just give up…..
many things need to change…want people to retire offer money take a bailout money and send them on there way many people would take anything the csrs people are stuiped for working over 40+ anyways 80% pay to stay home….. so usps dont want them to leave
fers is alot less so if the give them money they will go and save in the long run…. but making sence is not the postal way……..
Contracts?? if they would follow the CBA they all agreed to…. they could same millions……any one know how much money is paid out anually for this?
any great ideas would be great?