Daily Inter Lake: Two senators add their voices to postal opposition
Montana’s two senators are voicing their “total disagreement” with the Postal Service’s plan to close mail processing operations in Kalispell and Missoula and fold them into larger operations in Spokane.
The mail proposals are the subject of a public meeting tonight in Kalispell.
The proposed consolidations were announced as the financially struggling Postal Service aims to close more than half of its 487 mail processing centers around the country and lay off 35,000 workers, hoping to save $3 billion annually.
“While I understand the Postal Service must make some tough choices to get out of the red, it makes no sense to send mail from Montana out of state, over two mountain passes and back,” Sen. Max Baucus wrote in a recent letter to Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe.
If Kalispell’s processing operations at the main post office branch on Meridian Road are closed, even local mail would have to be shipped off to Spokane for sorting and then back for delivery.
That would mean the end of overnight delivery of local mail, affecting people, businesses and even elections, Baucus said.
