Test mailboxes in rural and suburban communities in California, Colorado and North Dakota are popular with customers and postal employees. The mailboxes are the same height as normal mailboxes but wider to accommodate the ever-growing number of packages received by customers. Customers volunteered to test the boxes earlier this year. Read more Read more
As Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Jason Chaffetz, (R-UT) is working to improve relationships with Democrats. He has visited ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) in Cummings’ home district, and has invited longtime postal reform advocate Gerald Connolly (D-VA) to join the Subcommittee on Government Operations, which oversees the USPS. Democrats have praised Chaffetz’s efforts,…
The USPS is preparing to replace its fleet of long life vehicles or LLVs. On July 6, 2015 the Postal Service announced it has awarded a contract to Morgan Olson LLC to build 3,339 new delivery trucks. The contract is worth more than one quarter of a billion dollars. The new vehicle –“Walk-In Body Intermediate…
People may react faster to email advertisements, but they are more emotionally attached to hard copy mail, according to a USPS Inspector General (IG) June white paper. Direct mail made up 31% of USPS total revenue in 2014. The IG worked with Temple University’s Center for Neural Decision Making in a study to determine consumer’s…
Erica Farmer and Marc Whitacre couldn’t just slap on a coat of paint and move into their new house because their home is one of America’s treasures: an abandoned post office in Havre, Montana, that’s on the National Register of Historic Places. Read more
E-commerce is growing dramatically. Competition is increasing among package delivery companies as customers increasingly favor online retailers over brick and mortar stores. Online shoppers want their purchases delivered quickly, reliably and affordably. Hence, the USPS must optimize its parcel delivery service to meet demand and increase revenue. The USPS Office of Inspector General (OIG) noted…
On July 9, 2015, Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) introduced (S.1742), The Rural Postal Act of 2015. This bill is intended to improve both rural mail service and the morale of rural postal workers. Following her “Fix My Mail” initiative—wherein Heitkamp examined the postal concerns of rural North Dakotans—Heitkamp has introduced a bill that proposes to…
Before negotiating a lease renewal, a postal lessor should ascertain the facts about the leased facility. First, the lessor should call the postmaster or branch manager of the building. The postmaster can be a lessor’s natural ally in keeping a building occupied. Important topics to discuss with the postmaster include the facility’s operating hours, the…
By Harry Glenn
The House Appropriations Committee approved legislation June 17th that would prevent the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) from consolidating or closing small and rural post offices.
The provision is included in the Fiscal Year 2017 Financial Services Appropriations Bill, the legislation that includes funding and oversight for USPS. The full House will consider the legislation later this year.
This provision was included in similar legislation last year and was signed into law last December. Because it is a part of an annual appropriations bill, it must be approved by Congress one year at a time.
The Postal Service must occasionally order an emergency suspension of service at a postal facility. The most common occurrences which justify such an emergency suspension are when a post office is not tenantable because of storm damage and/or unsafe health or safety conditions, such as those involving the presence of toxic mold or asbestos. When…