USPS plan to shift mail processing centers out of state will be detrimental for South Dakota. You can help stop it
The movement of USPS Regional Processing Centers from Sioux Falls to Omaha and Huron to Fargo, N.D., will not be good for South Dakota.
Please contact The United States Postal Service (one of its ubiquitous trucks is seen above in a public domain photo posted on wikimedia commons) to give your input on the transfer of the Regional Processing Center from Sioux Falls to Omaha and from Huron to Fargo, N.D., and extend the comment period. It will definitely impact the service by their own admission. If what the USPS says is true, we must give them our opinions.
Sioux Falls is one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation and it will lose its regional distribution center. This does not make any sense.
We are asking you to contact Mark Inglett, USPS strategic information specialist, by email, phone or letter as soon as possible with your concerns about the transfer of the centers.
The deadline for comments MUST be extended because so many people were not made aware of these proposals by the USPS. Why didn’t they put a notification in each person’s mailbox? Why were there so many questions that were answered with “that issue is yet to be decided?”
Why not use local-only mailboxes to save turnaround time for deliveries?
Millions of Americans and American businesses depend on USPS for timely delivery of their letters and packages. Why would the current USPS reorganization plan knowingly jeopardize the timeliness of our mail service? If the postal workers at the existing regional distribution centers are unable to transfer to Fargo or Omaha centers, will they lose their jobs?
Will the updating of processing machines save time and increase sorting efficiencies? How can a 180-mile, one-way trip to Omaha and Fargo with unsorted mail and subsequent trips back to South Dakota with sorted mail not delay delivery time to customers? Why would USPS not use their own first-class delivery mails service for customers to give input?
Why did USPS not have a late afternoon or evening meeting to get more public input from folks with who could not get off work to attend?
Why were so many of the South Dakota media organizations and citizens unaware of the meetings and public internet survey? These are just a few of the concerns raised at the Sioux Falls meeting at The Social on March 13.
Even though the Survey Monkey comment period ended March 28, we are asking that you continue to send comments to:
Mark Inglett, USPS strategic information specialist
399 West Pershing Road, Room 242
Kansas City, Mo., 64108
His phone numbers is 816-374-9111 and his email address is mark.m.inglett@usps.gov
Your input needs to be heard. We request having the comment period be extended because many South Dakotans including a significant portion of the news media (especially the weekly newspapers) were unaware of the hearings, much less the Internet survey.
Frank Kloucek of Scotland, S.D., was a Democratic state senator for 16 years and a state representative for six years who to still tries to help others when they ask. A 1974 Scotland High School graduate and 1978 SDSU graduate, he and his wife Joanie farm in Bon Homme County. They have four children and seven grandchildren.
Peggy Gibson of Huron and Mark Anderson and BJ Motley, both of Sioux Falls, assisted in writing this opinion piece.
