FAYETTEVILLE — The U.S. Postal Service will move some mail distribution from Fayetteville to Oklahoma City despite local objections, the service announced Tuesday.
"They either didn't listen or didn't care," Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce President Steve Clark said Tuesday. All 27 people who spoke at a public forum in Fayetteville on the proposal Dec. 6 opposed the plan.
Northwest Arkansas is one of the fastest-growing regions in the county, Clark said. Services here should be expanded, not reduced, he said.
“That’s businesses moving and growing here, not just residents,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Steve Womack of Rogers met with the postmaster general on Jan. 9 with objections to the plan. Womack said Tuesday: “I’m disappointed in the decision, but I’m hopeful USPS will stay true to their promise of no career layoffs and 95% on-time delivery for all mail products throughout Northwest Arkansas. I’ll continue to closely monitor this transition and ensure the Postal Service is held accountable to their commitment.”
The Postal Service will spend $3.3 million to modernize the Northwest Arkansas Processing and Distribution Center in Fayetteville, Tuesday’s announcement said. Plans include removing equipment the facility will not need anymore. The goal is to concentrate package-sorting operations into fewer regional centers and to modernize and automate those, previous announcements by the service say. The Fayetteville facility will remain open as a local processing center. Local delivery and collection times will not change, the announcement says.
“I don’t believe them for a minute when they say there won’t be any layoffs,” Clark said.
The plan will move 13 jobs out of Fayetteville to Oklahoma City. The Fayetteville center employs more than 90 clerks, about 50 mail handlers, 30 or more maintenance workers and about 10 supervisors, according to statements made as the move was under consideration.
All career union bargaining unit reassignments, as well as any reduction in any other employees “will be made in accordance with respective collective bargaining agreements,” Tuesday’s announcement says. Email and phone messages to the president of the Northwest Arkansas Area Local 667 of the American Postal Workers Union were not returned as of Tuesday afternoon. Attendees of the December public forum complained the 13 jobs would move to Oklahoma City and employees would have to move also to keep them.
Northwest Arkansas’ growth came up repeatedly in comments about the plan at the public forum, with the volume of mail growing along with the population.
The volume of letters continues to drop off, so packages make up an increasing share of the mail, according to a Jan. 11 letter from the Postal Service to Womack, two days after the congressman met with U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy about the proposal. The Postal Service’s mail handling system needs to change too, the letter said.
The sorting center in Oklahoma City is 227 miles by road from the Fayetteville facility, according to the plan approval document of the Postal Service. Womack, in a Nov. 28 letter, and others at the public forum challenged the Postal Service to explain how mail including packages could be more efficiently and economically sorted after traveling such a distance. The Postal Service said in the January reply letter to Womack that the packages being sorted are headed to areas outside the region, so the stop in Oklahoma City was just a stage on a longer trip.
At least 60 people attended the December public forum, held at 3 p.m. that day in the Fayetteville Public Library. Several of the speakers there objected to holding this one-and-only forum in the middle of the afternoon on a Wednesday work day in the middle of the holiday season.
The move will save the Postal Service at least $2.5 million in the first year and $2.5 to $3.2 million each year after that, according to the service’s projections.
The Northwest Arkansas Processing and Distribution Center, seen Tuesday in Fayetteville, will receive $3.3 million in renovations as the Postal Service plans to relocate 13 jobs out of Fayetteville to Oklahoma City as it moves some mail distribution there. Visit nwaonline.com/photo for today's photo gallery. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Andy Shupe)
The Northwest Arkansas Processing and Distribution Center, seen Tuesday in Fayetteville, will receive $3.3 million in renovations as the Postal Service plans to relocate 13 jobs out of Fayetteville to Oklahoma City as it moves some mail distribution there. Visit nwaonline.com/photo for today's photo gallery. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Andy Shupe)On the web
Final U.S. Postal Service decision document on the Fayetteville-Oklahoma change: nwaonline.com/327postal/