06 April 2015 (13:52 UTC-07 Tango 01)/17 Farvardin 1394/16 Jumada t-Tania 1436/18 Geng Chen 4713
Some east Idaho Post Offices have posted collection time changes (“Due to operational changes…”) for parcels and letters dropped off at their location. The new collection times are 30 minutes earlier than normal and go into effect on 18 April 2015.
Notice posted inside the Clark Street PO in Pocatello, Idaho.
18 April is supposedly the day all east Idaho mail will be shipped to Salt Lake City, Utah, for processing. That’s ALL mail; inbound from out of the area, out bound to other states and countries, and even cross-town letters!
17 April is the official last day of operations for the Gateway Processing Center in Pocatello. Many people are confusing the Processing Center with the Gateway Post Office, which is located in the same building. About 13 Clerks will remain employed after 17 April to continue operating the Post Office and the loading dock in the Processing Center. The loading dock will remain open because beginning 18 April all east Idaho mail (in the 832 zip code area) will be loaded straight onto trucks bound for out of state processing centers in Salt Lake City.
East Idaho mail in the 834 zip code area will be sent to the main PO in Idaho Falls (IF) to be shipped to Salt Lake City. This will be a logistical nightmare because the loading dock at the IF PO has only one door, which means trucks will have to wait in line to unload and load.
About 50 good paying jobs are in the process of being lost to a combination of early retirements, forced (“involuntary”) transfers and outright layoffs (with no severance).
There are rumors that eventually all Post Offices in Pocatello will be shutdown except for the Gateway Post Office, meaning the residents of Chubbuck and Pocatello will have only one Post Office.
Postal administrators swear up and down that delivery times will not be adversely affected by the shutdown. I’ve got another reason why that is a lie: Performance Ratings. For more than two decades the Gateway Processing Center has maintained some of the highest performance ratings in the Salt Lake Postal District, I’ve read that’s it’s as high as 92%. Guess who has maintained the lowest performance ratings? Yep, the Salt Lake Processing Centers!
Here’s some other disturbing news. While Salt Lake postal administrators want to shutdown Gateway, for some odd reason in the past month they’ve more than doubled the mail volume they’ve been sending to Pocatello for processing! Gateway Mail Handlers and Clerks state that the mail volume is now as high as during the end of year holiday season, and they’re operating with fewer employees due to forced retirements and transfers, and Salt Lake administrators will not allow the hiring of more employees due to the pending shutdown!
Question: If Salt Lake postal administrators think Pocatello is inefficient, and that Salt Lake can handle processing better, then why are they sending more and more mail our way?
A recent Idaho State Journal article indicated that Chubbuck city administrators have joined with Pocatello to try and stop the shutdown. No word on any of the dozens of other east Idaho cities joining the fight, even though the shutdown will directly affect them as well. Also, still no word from the dozens of east Idaho mail order companies, that use Priority Mail to ship out their products, showing any concern over the shutdown (companies like Weigh Vest, Fin Fun Mermaid, some company that sends Priority Medium Flat Rate boxes filed with dirt and exotic flower bulbs, another company that sends heavy boxes marked “liquid”, etc). Those companies will see a delay in their shipments as a result of the shutdown, despite what Salt Lake postal administrators say.
Pathetic turnout for east Idaho Mayor’s last ditch effort to save Postal Processing Center!