January 10, 2010 Update from Dave Berger

Ladies and Gents:

Hot Off the Presses!

The City of Lima’s latest quarterly newsletter, Our Community, is now available for you and for any with whom you would care to share it.

I hope you’ll take a moment and click on the link below to access the entire issue. Great information that you can use now and in the near future.

http://www.cityhall.lima.oh.us/ourcomm1001.pdf

By the way, to the 10th person who responds to this email and correctly identifies the man in the Tartan tie and Scottish kilt pictured in this issue, I will present a set of Kewpee Hamburger coupons.

USPS Needs to Get Some Mail from YOU and ME!

I hope that you have been following the proposal being advocated by the US Postal Service (USPS) for the closure of the mail processing center here in Lima. This past Wednesday the USPS held a public hearing at Lima Senior High School. The event was well attended with over 500 business leaders, representatives from surrounding communities, elected officials, and postal employees participating.

In summary, the information presented by the USPS was incomplete and the rationale for the proposed closure was ill conceived.

For information about the issue, please visit www.458postaltaskforce.com.

Once you have come up to speed on the issue, please write a letter to the persons listed below to express your support for keeping the Lima mail processing center open.

Ms. Chu Falling Star, District Manager

1591 Dalton Ave.

Cincinnati, Ohio 45234-9994

Ms. Megan J. Brennan, VP Operations

One Marquis Plaza

5315 Campbells Run

Pittsburgh, Pa. 15277-7010

Today’s Lima News provides a helpful perspective on this issue:

Lima News Editorial: Closure decision doesn't add up

| Recommend 2

Postal Service should prove its numbers before shutting Lima center

January 10, 2010 12:05 AM

The Lima News

Everyone can understand the U.S. Postal Service’s need to tighten its belt. It is losing billions a year. Something has to be done to stem the losses.

That something, however, shouldn’t be the random throwing of darts at a map. The something the Postal Service does should be on a national basis. The something should make sense, and it should be a savings that the Postal Service can prove will take place.

The possible closure of the Postal Service’s Lima distribution center doesn’t meet any of those criteria. Closing Lima, which serves 458 zip codes, appears to be what District Manager Chu Falling Star thought would be the easiest option.

Falling Star chose to study the Lima center for closure. It has been her call alone to this point. She says closing the Lima distribution center would save $1.4 million a year, but she has been unwilling — perhaps unable — to show how she arrives at that number. She calls it a conservative estimate, but Lima residents, postal officials and members of Congress apparently just have to take her word for it.

That’s not good enough. It wasn’t good enough for community leaders and postal union workers who turned out Wednesday to protest a possible closure. It shouldn’t be good enough for U.S. Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, and Bob Latta, R-Bowling Green, whose districts could suffer service delays and even the loss of businesses if the Lima distribution center closes.

The Postal Service closing the Lima center would cost this community 87 jobs. Eventually, merging Lima’s work with that of the Toledo distribution center would eliminate more than 50 jobs in Falling Star’s Western Ohio district. It’s believable that those jobs — which the postal union says pay about $80,000 annually in salary and benefits — could save the Postal Service quite a bit.

But Falling Star should be able to put the numbers on paper. How do transportation costs factor in, for example? Would it make more sense to downsize Toledo or Dayton operations a bit, bringing more work to Lima?

Right now, Falling Star told The Lima News before Wednesday’s public hearing, her numbers are tentative. So, despite our having asked, the postal union having asked, Jordan’s office having asked and community leaders having asked, Falling Star isn’t showing anyone where she gets $1.4 million. We’re just supposed to believe it because she says so.

Eighty-two communities in 10 counties stand to lose, so Falling Star should be able to offer more than her word.

Postal officials — the final decision isn’t Falling Star’s — must be able to show these savings are real and this is the best way to realize them.

Even assuming they do, the Postal Service’s district-by-district approach to trying to save — district managers chose which of their centers to look at — is piecemeal. If Congress wouldn’t have bailed out the Postal Service on retiree health costs, it would have lost $7.8 billion last year. The Postal Service needs to do a comprehensive study of its national operations rather than relying on its district managers alone to try to come up with those savings.

Could Lima absorb work from Toledo? Lima is more efficient. Could Lima or Toledo absorb work from Columbus or Indiana — which are in different districts than what Falling Star oversees — or vice versa?

The digital age has taken a large part of the post office’s business. Nationwide, there has been a 9.2 percent drop in parcels mailed over the past two years, while Lima’s handling has dropped off 17.5 percent in that same time. No one would argue that. But while Falling Star can recite those numbers, she can’t say how much business has dropped for Toledo, Dayton or Cincinnati — suggesting Lima seemed like the least hassle to close.

That isn’t fair. More importantly, it suggests Falling Star could be ignoring better ways to save money.

Take care.

Dave

David & Linda Berger

12ll Lakewood Avenue

Lima, Ohio 45805

419-228-7498

dberger@wcoil.com