On January 3 of this year, postal activist Douglas Carlson filed a complaint alleging that the USPS had improperly stopped offering Bound Printed Matter rate to retail customers. On February 4, the Postal Service filed a motion requesting that the PRC suspend action on the complaint, saying that it was preparing “classification changes intended to resolve the substance of the instant Complaint”. If the changes were to be approved by the Board of Governors, the USPS would then “file a further pleading in this docket explaining how the action resolves this Complaint”. If that arrangement wasn’t acceptable to the PRC, the USPS requested an additional two months to prepare a statement on the Carlson complaint.

Yesterday the PRC denied the USPS motion, pointing out that under the law, the Commission must either dismiss or take action on complaints within 90 days. Since that time period will expire on April 2, the USPS’s suggested deadline of April 4 for its statement on the complaint was not acceptable. The PRC denied the USPS motion, and ordered it to issue a statement on the complaint no later than March 7.

Douglas Carlson, who has been a frequent intervenor in Postal Rate/Regulatory Commission proceedings, has filed a complaint with the PRC alleging that the Postal Service has illegally made it difficult, if not impossible, for individual customers to mail packages at the bound printed matter rate, which is lower than the standard media mail rate. Carlson cites instances where he attempted to mail a dictionary, only to be told by window clerks that the rate was no longer available, that the book did not qualify for the rate, or, bizarrely, that it could only be accepted if it already had postage on it when he brought it to the window.

Carlson also notes that the USPS web site’s rate calculator no longer mentions the rate, and that it is not available from the Automated Postal Centers in post office lobbies.

Carlson’s complaint alleges that “When a customer presents items for mailing at a retail window and asks for the least-expensive shipping method and the window clerk knows or should know that the item would qualify for a Bound Printed Matter rate, Postal Service policy prohibits the window clerk from offering or suggesting Bound Printed Matter service to the customer, even if Bound Printed Matter service might or would fulfill the customer’s shipping needs at the lowest price of any service.”

He says this policy “unduly and unreasonably discriminates against individual and small business mailers, in a manner not specifically authorized by title 39. Compared to large mailers, individual and small-business mailers are less likely to know about services that window clerks do not offer, that Automated Postal Centers do not offer, and that the Postage Rate Calculator at www.usps.gov does not mention.”

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has told the US Postal Service to comply with the Freedom of Information Act, and provide information about the location, phone numbers, business hours, and final collection times of every US Post Office. The USPS had claimed that the information was “information of a commercial nature” and therfore not subject to public dislosure. This despite the fact that the information is already available on the USPS’s “Post Office Locator” web page.

The USPS contended that revealing the information en masse would, among other things, draw customers away from the USPS web site, and undermine its “business relationship with the company, Switchboard, Inc., which maintains and operates the Post Office Locator website”. The USPS’s “Web Specialist”, however, admitted that “USPS pays nothing to Switchboard, Inc., for its web services, but permits Switchboard to redirect Post Office Locator users to other Switchboard client sites.”

The court held that “Post office names, addresses, telephone numbers, hours of operation and final collection times are not ‘information of a commercial nature’”. The court did not decide “whether the complete USPS database from which Carlson requested an electronic version of this particular information is commercial nor whether the USPS database may be exempt from disclosure. In so ruling we do not preclude further consideration by the district court nor do we preclude consideration of reasonable conditions.”

The case now goes back to the District Court for reconsideration based on the Appeals Court decision. The USPS, having lost the appeal, will be required to pay Carlson’s costs for the Appeals Court proceedings.

Doug Carlson, a frequent consumer intervenor in postal rate cases, alerted us to the database of collection box data now posted on the Postal Rate Commission web site:

“The data show the location and collection times for every collection in the country. The Postal Service resisted release of the data for several years, but a federal judge ordered the Postal Service last year to release the data in response to my Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.”

Note that the data is from January of 2005.

Click here to download the database (it’s a 15 megabyte .zip file, containing six Excel spreadsheets with the actual data).