Az Dems: Don't rush to close Cherrybell mail sorting center

Posted Apr 12, 2013

Dylan Smith
TucsonSentinel.com

Arizona's Democratic members of Congress sent this letter — about the closure of the mail sorting facility at Tucson's Cherrybell post office — to Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe on Friday:

As members of the Arizona delegation we are writing to oppose the recent announcement to accelerate the closure of the Tucson Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC) from 2014 to 2013. To this end, we would like to request a meeting with you the week of April 15th or soon thereafter to discuss the impact the consolidation proposal will have on Tucson and the State of Arizona.

The closure of the Tucson P&DC would leave one of the nation's fastest growing populations with only one processing facility. By any measure, this represents an unwise deployment of scarce resources. With the recently announced plan to accelerate the timeframe to 2013, we are seeking answers to the following questions:

What are the factors you considered to justify moving the closure of the Tucson P&DC from 2014 to 2013?
What impact would Congressional action on a Postal Reform bill have on the decision to accelerate the timeframe?
What impact will this have on the workforce and what plans do you have in place for the employees?
The business community in Southern Arizona would be disproportionately impacted by this decision. What plans do you have in place to ensure they will not lose bulk mailing discounts?

We are concerned that the decision to close the Tucson Processing & Distribution Center has been made on an arbitrary basis without consideration of complete factors and criteria on its impact on the State as a whole.

Furthermore, your effort to continue to pursue closure outside of a strategy for comprehensive legislative reform poses many real and varied threats to our local economy and quality of life. We look forward to meeting in person in order to discuss the issues in greater detail.

Raul M. Grijalva
Ron Barber
Ed Pastor
Kyrsten Sinema
Ann Kirkpatrick

Tucson's mailed trucked to Phoenix

In February, the Postal Service stopped sorting mail at the Morris K. Udall Post Office. USPS has said that all distribution operations will end at Tucson's main post office, 1501 S. Cherrybell Stravenue, sometime this year.

All mail from Southern Arizona is now being trucked to Phoenix for processing. Mail for Tucson and other Southern Arizona destinations is then trucked back for delivery.

The Postal Service, pressured by a congressional mandate to fully fund pensions decades into the future, maintains that closing Tucson's mail processing center will save money.

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news, politics & government, business, local, arizona, opinion, guest opinion, breaking,

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