State’s money troubles draw BIG attention
February 14, 2012
Columbus’ flagships sail into Houma
February 14, 2012
Morgan City residents will learn by spring whether or not the U.S. Postal Service will close the city’s 80-year-old downtown post office.
The main post office, located at Brashear and Victor II boulevards, would handle mail for the city’s 12,000-plus residents.
Postal officials said at a public hearing last Tuesday the closure is under review. The move was precipitated by the downtown post office’s weakened volume performance and its inability to make money on postal extras, such as returned-receipt items, gift box sales, passports and other specialty services.
“On a national level, the main reason for our financial loss is technology,” Rachel Cousins, Louisiana’s postal marketing manager said. “People paying bills online, automatic drafts and the like have made us lose first-class volume. We don’t expect this volume to come back.”
The workload at Morgan City’s downtown office has been declining for at least three years, she said. “That’s why it is on our list.”
Nationally, the U.S. Postal Service has lost $15 billion over the past two years.
“A lot of people think we’re a government agency, but we’re not government-funded,” Cousins explained. “We make money from what we sell across the counter.”
Although the postal service is self-funded, it is federally regulated. Congressional changes could help ease the financial bleeding.
“Right now, we’re waiting for Congress to decide whether they will allow us to reduce deliver to five day a week instead of six,” the marketing manager said. “This will save [the nation’s postal service] $3.5 billion a year.”
The service is also asking Congress to modify a law requiring the agency to pre-pay $5.5 billion annually to pre-fund health benefits to future retirees.
The review process for closing the Morgan City downtown center could last 120 days or longer, according to Post Office Discontinuation Coordinate Alfred Christophe. “But if we close it, you do have the right to appeal our decision,” he told residents at last week’s public hearing.
The Morgan City postal site is among 70 Louisiana offices under review. Cousins said the postal service is also considering closing two of the state’s four processing plants, “which will save big bucks.”
Morgan City Mayor Tim Matte suggested the downtown post office’s plight is the result of the U.S. Postal Service’s effort to save money. “Most of this has been the [U.S.] post office’s doing,” Matte said. “To say it’s now a reason for possible closure … is a little unfair for you to penalize that facility.”
Kari Morvant, a clerk at the downtown post office, agreed, telling Cousins, “If you want more revenue then give me the stock to do my job. I can’t tell you the number of people I send to the Brashear office on a given day because I don’t have the supplies I need to function.” The mayor and city council have been vocal against the proposed closure of the downtown post office, saying such a move would “exasperate the problem.”
Matte reiterated opposition last week, telling Cousins the Brashear site needs “a tremendous amount of renovation,” including adding parking.
St. Mary Parish Councilman Kevin Voisin said the closure would also place undue hardship on the city’s elderly.
Morgan City attorney C.E. Bourg proposed an alternative closure: the Berwick site.
“Why not save the rent,” he asked Cousins. Berwick is a smaller facility; mail was once routed through the Morgan City downtown site. “If I want to buy stamps, I go to Berwick because there are never any lines there. … No lines are at the post office in Patterson either.”
Morvant said at least 400 post office boxes are regularly rented at the downtown site. Cousins said rotary boxes at the Brashear site could serve those customers.
The marketing manager also suggested redirecting some services – post office box rentals and stamp sales – to any interested business in the downtown area.
The downtown Morgan City Post Office first opened July 15, 1932, but postal roots run deeper. According to Morgan City’s archives, postmaster Robert Brashear operated the city’s first post office in 1855. The location for the facility is believed to have been in a small wood-frame building located behind the downtown facility. It would be a year before the federal government adopted the use of stamps on mail.
Steadily declining volume has Morgan City’s post office a few
months away from learning its fate.
