USPS and community prepare to talk move

Both the U. S. Postal Service and community leaders are getting ready for a hearing Wednesday to talk about a study suggesting Havre's mail processing be moved to Great Falls.

The postal service put the presentation online at http://www.usps.com/all/amp.htm. Postal service administrators plan to show it at the hearing in the Havre Middle School auditorium at 6:15 p. m.

The 18-page document goes over the reasoning behind the recent study and the results that were published last week.

Following the release of the results, the Havre Area Chamber of Commerce sent out an email encouraging people to attend the the meeting.

Paul Tuss, executive director of Bear Paw Development Corp., responded to the Chamber email with his own concerns.

"I know no one wants to be insensitive to the financial condition of the Postal Service, " Tuss said in his email, "but I'm deeply worried about the impact this move will have on jobs in our area, the reliability of mail delivery for the region and the signal this move sends about the relative importance of rural communities to the federal government. "

In his email, he attached a letter that he had sent to Randal Schwartz, Havre's postmaster, earlier this month that expressed similar concern.

"As you can imagine, our organization, along with civic leaders in the Havre area, are deeply concerned about the impact your study may have on Postal Service jobs in the region, as well as the reliability of postal operations in Havre, " Tuss' letter said. "Furthermore, consolidating the USPS's operations and infrastructure in more urban areas is a trend that is also troubling. "

Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch sent a letter to the Postmaster General, Patrick Donahoe, urging the USPS to take the effect on elections into consideration as they think about consolidating four post offices across the state, including Havre, Butte, Helena and Miles City offices.

"In Montana's 2010 Federal General Election, 47 percent of the votes were cast by absentee mail ballot, " McCulloch's letter said. "That's a large increase from just ten years ago, when only 15 percent of the votes were cast by absentee ballot. We fully anticipate the percentage of absentee mail ballots cast in Montana in 2012 to exceed any previous year's total, moving the state closer to all mail-ballot elections — a process that would save counties an estimated $2 million every election cycle. "

The letter says that 39 percent of the last election's votes from Havre were cast by mail.

Her concern is that such consolidation could possibly interfere with voting and "unintentionally discourage Montanans from voting by mail. "

Within the same 10-year time frame in which mailed-in votes more than tripled, the USPS says that first-class mail has dropped from 50 billion to less than 35 billion items, a 42 percent drop.

And that is why the post office is looking so hard for cost-cutting measures, like these consolidations.

According the USPS study, moving service from Havre to Great Falls would save $24,000. Moving service from Havre, Helena and Butte to Great Falls, and from Miles City to Billings, could save the system more than $500,000.

And they say the change would not affect the delivery times, retail service or business mail acceptance.

Before any changes are made though, they are seeking community input both at the HMS meeting on Wednesday at 6:15, and in the mail to their Billings office.