Postal Distribution Center to Close
By Moe White
The US Postal Service has scheduled a public hearing this month to discuss its plan to shut down all operations at the Asheville Processing and Distribution Facility located on Brevard Road. In accordance with the plan, all the operations currently being performed at this facility will be moved to Greenville, SC, 60 miles away.
Before implementing the shutdown, however, the USPS must hold a public input meeting, scheduled for 6 p.m. November 21, at the Ferguson Auditorium on the AB Tech Campus at 340 Victoria Road in Asheville. The forum is designed as an informational meeting at which the Postal Service will identify and detail the changes that they are proposing and solicit inquiries and input from the community.
The plan is already in place; however, under federal regulations, it
cannot be implemented until a community input meeting has been held.
According to Mark Case, a Postal Service employee and Legislative
Director of American Postal Workers Union – Asheville Area Local 277,
“Very few facilities have been taken back off the closure list after
these community meetings. A similar meeting was held on the Hickory, NC
Processing and Distribution Facility last year, and [that facility] is
due to close in March of 2012.” The facilities that have come off the
closure list nationwide after these community meetings “have been areas
where there has been overwhelming public input and support,” said Case.
In order to provide the public with accurate information and
understanding of USPS proposed changes, the APWU in Asheville will hold a
community meeting the day before the USPS forum. That meeting, on
Sunday, Nov. 20, will be from 7:30-9:00 p.m.; the APWU has not announced
the location. At the meeting the public will learn the background of
the Postal Service’s official reasoning leading up to these change
proposals, and what area citizens can do to save local postal service.
The union described the potentially devastating impact to our regional
mail service with a list of the effects that closing the regional WNC
distribution facility would cause:
• Loss of 100 to 200 well-paying jobs from our local economy
• Loss of centralized processing for consumers, businesses, and churches and other nonprofit organizations
• Loss of knowledgeable local staff to check on mail status, procedures, delays, and arrivals
• Decrease in security of the mail due to longer transport times and multiple handling
• Delays in service, including doubling of delivery time for local mail
• Loss of efficiency in distribution—mail originating in WNC will be
trucked 60 miles down the mountain to Greenville for sorting, while mail
staying within WNC will travel up to 250 additional miles to reach its
destination
• Loss of the postmark identifying our community and even our
state—mail will show a cancellation postmark from Greenville, South
Carolina.
To find out the location of the November 20 meeting, visit the AFL-CIO
website at http://nc.aflcio.org/wncclc/ or email Mark Case at
[email protected].
