Some Hope In USPS Shut-Downs

Four sponsors of postal reform legislation in the Senate are asking the Postal Service to delay closing post offices and mail processing facilities until a proposed new law is passed. May 15 is the date announced by Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe to begin closing up to 252 mail processing centers and 3,700 post offices as part of efforts to save the mail agency $6.5 billion a year. Listed on USPS’s originally released chopping block are the Chattanooga Processing Center, which handles mail for Manchester, the Tullahoma area mail, the Normandy Post Office and the Sherwood Post Office. Normandy mail already is transported to the Tullahoma Post Office and then sent on to Chattanooga. If Chattanooga is closed, all area mail will go the Nashville Processing Center, which could cause a one-day delay in receiving mail, postal authorities have said. The Senate-passed bill would save about half of the processing centers from closure and place a one-year moratorium on closing rural post offices. Post offices located more than 10 miles from the next closest mail facility would generally be protected from closure, under the legislation. Normandy, however, is slightly less than 10 miles away, which might possibly put it in jeopardy.