In a crowded, insufficiently ventilated conference hall of the Hilton Garden Inn, representatives from the US Postal Service on Tuesday evening heard the disapproval and outrage of members of the Springfield and greater Central Illinois communities, in response to the recently announced proposal to downgrade the Springfield Regional Processing and Distribution Center (RPDC) and route mail from the Springfield area into St. Louis, Missouri.
The Post Office’s strictly 2-hour public meeting, which was scheduled to coincide with the standard timing of the Springfield City Council’s weekly sessions, saw the limited hotel parking space filled beyond capacity and attendees spilling out of the conference room. Many of those present were postal workers; many of them sported signs protesting Postal Service executive management and the planned changes.
Having postponed their own standard meeting, officials of the City of Springfield also attended in force: Mayor Misty Buscher and the alderpeople addressed the USPS’s plans in unanimous disapproval.
“This decision threatens crucial processing equipment and local jobs,” said the Mayor, standing together with the Council and City staff. “Our community relies on a reliable postal service […] As I stand with our community, and our Council here tonight, I assert that the Springfield Processing and Distribution Center is vital to our city’s wellbeing and economic vitality, and it must remain open to serve our residents effectively, and efficiently.”
Post Office West Shore Division Director Frank Veal presented the consolidation as part of a $40 billion effort to “upgrade and improve processing and transportation, delivery networks, and employee experience across the country,” arguing that the redirection of local mail 100 miles across state lines would constitute an improvement to the quality of postal customer service and efficiency. The presentation insisted the USPS “will invest $5.1 million” into the newly re-categorized and de-prioritized “Springfield Local Processing Center.”
Postal Service employees in the crowd were unimpressed by the assurances.
“Fixing the floors and repairing the parking lots and the bathrooms — that’s maintenance,” said Barbara, a USPS worker.
She continued: “It’s a terrible idea to consolidate operations into these megahub, amazon-like facilities. What’s going to happen if there’s a tornado, or a heatwave, or a snowstorm that takes the power out? That’s gonna shut down the mail for an entire region, and affect people outside the region too.”
Veal additionally claimed that the downgrade would not impact business delivery services: “The [Springfield distribution facility] is not closing, and there will be no career employee layoffs,” he repeatedly and clearly assured the room.
But members of the audience loudly questioned contradictory language in both the Post Office’s own handouts for the public meeting and in the presentation’s slideshow.
As Springfield APWU President Johnny Bishop pointed out, “They say no layoff — it’s because they cannot lay us off, by our contract. The “impacted number” is what we have to look at… We were told a week ago it was ‘nine.’ [Veal] said it was ‘nine,’ but the slide said ‘eighteen.’”
The focus of frustration for many people in the crowd was Postmaster General Louis DeJoy: formerly a private freight company owner and a major fundraiser for former president Donald Trump, DeJoy generated controversy during the 2020 election cycle when, after being appointed by Trump with a mandate to make the USPS “profitable,” DeJoy’s first public action was to abruptly shutter a large number of ballot delivery boxes across the country during the primary season.
With insufficient numbers to avoid a potential filibuster in the Senate, the succeeding administration declined to appoint a new Postmaster General — and now, as the country prepares for a new election cycle, DeJoy has declared he intends to cut $5 billion in annual operating costs for the Postal Service.
All of this belt-tightening comes after Congress granted $50 billion in financial support to the USPS in 2022.
The decision to consolidate mail delivery out of southern Illinois and into Missouri was directly described by Veal as part of DeJoy’s larger Delivering for America plan, a 10-year restructuring of the postal service based on DeJoy’s experience as a private freight business owner.
And that prior experience, it was speculated by community members at Tuesday’s meeting, was at the heart of the entire plan:
“[DeJoy’s company, Expo Logistics] handle the long-distance transportation of our mail,” noted Eric Parker, another of the postal employees present. “So by lengthening the distance of our logistics — who is benefiting from this? Lengthening the logistics chain equals more money in DeJoy’s pocket, and that is why he has backed this plan.
“Who is checking on DeJoy’s list of income?”
The Postal Service representatives admitted they had no answer to that question.
The meeting was sharply concluded just before the scheduled time of 8:00, with several people still left standing trying to speak. Frank Veal explained that there would be no further meetings with the public before the consolidation plan was finalized and a decision made. That decision, it was explained, could come as early as July.
Nevertheless, the USPS again directed further public remarks to their online comment portal: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/mpfr-springfield-il.
