The City of Springfield has announced that this week’s City Council meeting – normally held on Tuesdays – will be rescheduled to Wednesday, March 27, 5:30 PM. The rescheduling will allow for city officials to attend the USPS’s public meeting set for 6:00 PM on Tuesday, March 26, at the Hilton Garden Inn at 3100 S. Dirksen Parkway.
The Post Office will hear comments from Springfield and Central Illinois citizens on the Postmaster General’s recently announced plan to downgrade the Springfield mail processing and distribution center to a smaller “local processing center.” Following the downgrade, which comes as part of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s “Delivering for America” plan, the only large-scale distribution center left in Illinois would be the unit serving the Chicagoland area.
Mail for all other areas of Illinois would instead be routed out of the distribution center 100 miles away in St. Louis, Missouri, which was described by the Springfield chapter of the American Postal Workers Union, or APWU, as among the worst in the country for postal delivery timeliness. A substantial decline in the reliability of mail is expected to follow the decision, which comes during an election year.
Additionally, while the USPS officially claims that no layoffs will be associated with the downgrade plans, postal workers warn that the proposed move would effectively force many employees who cannot afford to comply with relocations to quit, costing the City of Springfield jobs and other economic benefits afforded by the current postal system.
The City and the Postal Workers Union have encouraged members of the public to attend the USPS public meeting and voice concerns to representatives of the Post Office.
Once again: the meeting will be held at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, March 26, at the Hilton Garden Inn at 3100 S. Dirksen Parkway. All members of the public are invited to attend.
The City also encourages citizens to send reactions to the Post Office’s public comment portal, located at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/mpfr-springfield-il.
