Close Up. Reorganiing the Postal Service

"I gave a letter to the postman
He put it in his sack.
Bright early next morning
He brought my letter back.
Return to sender, address unknown.
No such number, no such zone."
       "Return to Sender" Recorded by Elvis Presley, 1962

Reorganization comes to the Medford, Oregon Post Office. 

It is part of a national program. Your town may be next.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy came into the consciousness of Democrats in 2020 as a villain. He was Trump's new Postmaster General and he was going to reorganize the Postal Service. He announced plans to close offices and remove high-speed sorting machines. He freely admitted it would be a service reduction, with slower delivery of mail -- including those of mail-in ballots that Democrats were advocating as a safer way to vote during the Covid pandemic. Was this partisan vote suppression masquerading as progress and efficiency?

Postmaster Louis DeJoy

Over the past three years the postal service dropped from the headlines, but the work of consolidation is still continuing. There will be fewer sorting centers but they will be bigger. Cross-town mail will travel hundreds of miles each way to get delivered. The Postal Service had a public information meeting in Medford this week. Their goal was to explain the implications of closing the Medford sorting center and consolidating mail-sorting at the huge new regional center in Portland.

Tam Moore has been doing journalism for almost 70 years, starting back when he was a student at Oregon State University. He attended this meeting and gives this report. What is happening in Medford is also happening in Eugene, Oregon and in secondary cities and suburbs all over the country. 

Guest Post by Tam Moore. 

Tam Moore

I went to a meeting on U.S. Post Office consolidation and proposed changes to our regional mail processing facility as a Post Office customer. One of my volunteer jobs these days is the monthly bulk mailing of my church’s newsletter. I wanted to know what the jargon-laced news about a “Medford Facility Study” might mean to timing of mailing and delivery of that newsletter.

USPS brochure: "New Sorting and Delivery centers"

But I’d hardly settled into my front-row chair at the local Hilton Garden Inn, listening to the USPS presentation and the initial comments from the public, before I found myself taking notes on what people were saying. They couldn’t understand what the facilities review team had said, nor how the proposed reorganization impacted them. My reporter genes kicked in.“Is there a flow chart of a letter” making its way through the revised system, asked an early witness. “Can you promise there will be no delay in delivery?”

Two postal worker union leaders accused the review team of violating labor contract provisions requiring notice and consultation before changes. John DiPeri, senior director of operations for USPS Pacific Northwest Division, led the government’s team of four. It was three guys in suit-and- tie, plus Kim Krum, USPS spokesperson for Oregon and Washington. DiPeri conducted a similar community meeting the day before in Eugene, target of another facility study. He will take transcripts from both meetings to his office – not in the Pacific Northwest although that’s his job title –a second-floor suite out East Van Buren Street in Phoenix, Arizona. In government speak, what’s proposed for the Medford facility serving patrons in four counties is called a “local processing center.”

“…the facility is not closing and no other post offices will be closed,” DiPeri said.

But he said 29 career employee and one manager job will be eliminated, with opportunities to transfer to another facility. He also indicated some non-career employees will be laid off.

Over 100 people filled the long meeting room, many drifting in and out over the two hour session which opened with DiPeri reading an updated version of an August 1 preliminary report. About half worked for the Post Office or used to. The rest of us were interested mail patrons already frustrated when DiPeri told us they wouldn’t try to answer questions at the meeting.

“This is being recorded, we will answer all questions in writing,” said a suit up front, typing away at a laptop computer.

Over an hour later when most of the audience had vented their opinions on everything from getting U.S. Postmaster Louis DeJoy fired and the meaning of the postal clause in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, someone asked the guy taking notes where and when interested people could read the written response.

He couldn’t tell us.

Medford presentation

“I’d bet on USPS.com,” said a voice from the back of the room. No one upfront acknowledged the comment.

I won’t bet on USPS.com. At the meeting the final slide in DiPeri’s presentation gave an “about.USPS.com” address for the preliminary Medford study. When I tried it the next morning a “page not found” response turned up on USPS.com.

Ed Cooper, a local resident who gets his prescription drugs by mail from the local Veteran’s Administration pharmacy, called the formal presentation “government gobbledygook.”

Speculation abounded that all mail originating in the 975 and 976 zip code prefixes would be trucked to the massive USPS Portland processing center, then trucked back to the Medford mail facility for delivery. That’s a 600 mile round trip. DiPeri specifically said local mail will be “prioritized” and Medford equipment updated. A current contract at the facility on Erman Way between Medford and Central Point has remodeled both inside space and the large adjoining parking lot for USPS vehicle and employee parking.

The preliminary Medford facility review says all packages will indeed make the trip to Portland for sorting. It was silent on what’s in store for letter mail. But DeJoy’s August 8 remarks to the Postal Board of Governors' hint that highway trucking is big in his “Delivering America” 10-year plan. He told governors that currently 95 percent of all mail moves by truck.

That’s probably why we don’t see Air Mail stamps these days. And why one patron at the Medford meeting complained about it taking a week for a letter containing a check to arrive in Medford after being posted in northeast Oregon’s LaGrande. It arrived with a Portland postmark affixed several days after the sender said the letter was posted at LaGrande.

When the $92.6 million Portland facility opened in 2018, it was the second-to-the-largest USPS facility in the U.S. Only an international mail sorting center in New Jersey was larger. Located on 13.4 acres near Portland International Airport, the sprawling building contained 52 letter-sorting machines, a giant package-sorting machine said to be capable of processing 30,000 packages an hour, and 92 loading docks for trucks. Under DeJoy’s 10-year plan, Portland is identified as one of 60 Regional Processing and Distribution Centers to be built or upgraded nationwide

The preliminary finding for Medford claims it will result in between $3.9 and $6.4 million in savings at full implementation; most of that comes from reduced transportation costs. No backup calculations were disclosed.

“Postal math does not add up,” said Brian Finch who identified himself as a 17-year postal service employee.

Jeremy Schilling, president of Chapter 342 of American Postal Workers Union, said more employees are needed in the Medford area, not fewer.

“It seems the U.S. Postal Service is determined to push ahead with its plan contrary to what the people want,” he said. “Why should we downsize? It seems like another move to dismantle the postal service and hand its market share to the private sector.”

Several who spoke suggested political pressure on Oregon’s U.S. Senators and at least one congressman be applied to seek dismissal of DeJoy. The Postmaster began service in 2020 with controversial orders to remove some high-speed letter sorting machines as the 2020 general election approached, only to reverse the orders in October less than one month before the voting began. In a House oversight hearing two months ago, he promised to keep cutting, turning 400 regional processing centers into those 60 mega centers.

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