If Approved, USPS Consolidation Plans Could
Adversely Impact Service, Jobs in Our Area
The Study: The USPS has publicly stated that this is only a “study” and
that no determinations have been made yet -- but before an AMP study is
even launched, the Postal Service is supposed to give full consideration to
community and employee impact. We have been told
that the Manasota Plant is not closing. But if the consolidations under consideration are approved, the changes could have a
major impact on mail service and jobs in our community.
Service: The operations the USPS is proposing to move is our outgoing (postmarked) mail. Under the plan, all our local mail will have to travel
considerably farther to be processed and returned to our area. For example, a
letter mailed from Sarasota to Bradenton would have to travel to Tampa to be
postmarked, be partially processed, then transported back to our plant for more processing, then back to Bradenton for delivery, instead of
being fully processed locally. This proposal impacts more than the cities of Sarasota and Bradenton. In fact, if your Zip Code begins with 342, this proposal will impact your mail service too. (Scroll down to see if your city/town is impacted)
Not only will this proposal increase the distance the mail has
to travel (fuel), it will increase the probability that 342 to 342 mail will be
delayed.
It puts all of our community mail into the traffic and congestion surrounding the Tampa area, instead of being processed locally, as it is now. The USPS would like you to believe that nothing would change under the proposal. But under the plan, our local mail would traverse the Sunshine Skyway and Howard Frankland Bridges, and have to travel each day to the Tampa International Airport and back. This move would also negatively impact residents of Tampa, leading to more traffic congestion in the Tampa Bay area.
Have you ever been on the Howard Frankland when there's been an accident? Were you delayed? You were not alone, according to a recent Texas A&M University Report, the Tampa/St. Petersburg area has one of the highest levels of congestion and "delay of traveler" rating. Click here to view the Texas A&M congestion report.
"Congestion cost the (Tampa/St. Petersburg) area more than $1 billion in 2005, according to a recent survey conducted by Texas A&M University's Texas Transportation Institute. That's an average cost to each driver of $809 per year, up from $591 million, or $584 per driver, in 2000. Drivers in Tampa and St. Petersburg find themselves sitting through congestion an additional 45 hours, down an hour from 2004 and 2003, but up seven hours since 2000. Drivers also are wasting 28 gallons of gas per year trying to crawl from one point to another." (-from the Tampa Bay Business Journal). The proposal would also impact Tampa postal customers, as their processing center would be responsible for also sorting all the mail for the 342 Zip Code.
The increased distance imposed under the plan will especially have a large impact on
the southern and eastern portion of our service area, North Port, Venice,
Englewood and Arcadia, whose mail would travel the farthest. To make up for the increased distance and traffic congestion, we will likely see 342 mail collected earlier
and arriving later in the day, even into the night – as changes in collections
and delivery times are not considered by the USPS as delayed mail. Checks and
important medications may not reach their destination when they are needed;
credit ratings would suffer with late payments, cards and gifts could arrive
later. For businesses, earlier collections and later deliveries could mean the
difference between success and failure. With the proposed addition of a nightly round trip to Tampa and back, any mail that misses a new cutoff time could be delayed by a day or more.
Postmark: Under the plan, the postmark would automatically change to TAMPA. The USPS will say that our local postmark
will still be available. What is not being said is that, if approved, most of
the public would have to wait in line at the Post Office and request a local
postmark.
Jobs: The Postal Service will say that no
career employees will lose their jobs. The facts are, under this plan, 59 JOBS will be cut from the Manasota facility and we will lose postal machinery used to process mail from our plant.
These positions and resources will not be eliminated, positions will be offered in other communities. The employees will not necessarily go to Tampa with the mail. The Manasota employees would have to be placed in the nearest opening, which could be 100 or 100's of miles away. 85% of us live in this area, and may
have to relocate up to hundreds of miles away in order to keep our jobs. Along
with the loss of jobs from our area, will go the
economic and community impacts these Manasota employees and their families have here. The Manasota P&DC has higher productivity than other
plants. For Fiscal Year 2008 (the same period of the study), Manasota was the number 1 plant in the Suncoast District in BPI (Productivity), Lowest Late Truck % and Lowest At-Risk (for being late) Mail Pieces. The Manasota Plant is the #5 plant (out of 324 plants) in the nation for Overnight Service and #2 in the nation in 2-Day Service. How is it more efficient to consolidate operations out of one of the most productive and efficient plants in the nation into one not as productive?
The Manasota facility and surrounding 35 acre property are
owned by the USPS and the facility is also designed to be expanded. The Postal
Service leases the Tampa P&DC and other postal plants in the state. Still, we
are not aware of any current consolidation studies being considered to
consolidate mail processing work into the Manasota plant. Any effort to
consolidate local operations should be part of a study of the entire mail
processing network.
What’s Next:
The USPS has stated that their Consolidation proposal will be approved or disapproved by US Postal Service Headquarters by the end of March 2009.
We thank everyone in the community for their support and for signing our petition. In just 9 weeks, 14,435 postal customers and residents in our community signed the petition to keep mail processing here.
We also appreciate all of the following officials/governments that wrote letters to the USPS and/or passed resolutions opposing the USPS proposal to shift any mail processing from Manasota to Tampa:
Congressman Vern Buchanan
City of Sarasota
City of Bradenton
Manatee County Commission
Sarasota County Commission
City of Palmetto
City of Arcadia
City of Venice
Town of Longboat Key
City of Holmes Beach
City of North Port
City of Bradenton Beach
City of Anna Maria
The Manasota P&DC is located at 850 Tallevast Road in Sarasota, FL, but is
actually in Manatee County. The Manasota P&DC is the USPS distribution center
for all Post Offices in the 342 Zip Code area. Our service area is similar to
the 13th Congressional District, including all of Sarasota and
Manatee Counties and parts of Desoto County.
And all unincorporated communities in Sarasota, Manatee and
parts of Desoto County.
