The U.S. Postal Service has proposed merger with the Baton Rouge facility, which it expects would save $4.3 million
Hundreds of people, including the mayor and the heads of major New Orleans businesses, showed up to a public meeting Tuesday evening at New Orleans City Hall to lambaste the U.S. Postal Service's proposal to close the 880-employee downtown mail distribution center and merge it with one in Baton Rouge. The Postal Service announced in September that it is considering merging 250 of its 487 processing centers nationwide.
View full sizeThe U.S. Postal Service distribution center in New Orleans was photographed Sept. 15. Postal officials' ongoing feasibility study has so far shown that operations can be made more efficient by merging the New Orleans and Baton Rouge facilities, according to a fact sheet postal officials passed out at the meeting. The study will be completed in a few months.
Louisiana Postal Service Manager Jeffery Taylor said the public input meeting, organized by postal officials, would be taken into account as part of the feasibility study. When the floor was opened to public comment, nearly every speech was followed by thunderous applause in the standing-room-only council chambers.
More than concern over their jobs, postal employees spoke to Taylor, Postal Service spokesman McKinney Boyd and Gilbert Romero, senior postal plant manager for Louisiana, primarily about the New Orleans facility being larger and handling more mail than the Baton Rouge one.
Boyd said during the meeting that he would double-check his statement in September that the Baton Rouge facility is larger and can accommodate additional equipment and employees. After the meeting, he confirmed that while the New Orleans facility has a greater square footage because it is two stories tall, the Baton Rouge facility occupies twice as much land and is not locked in by other buildings as the New Orleans facility is, making it better suited for the merger.
The New Orleans facility, which is about the size of two football fields and located behind a retail post office on 701 Loyola Ave., serves as the main sorting and distribution center for mail going to and from ZIP codes beginning with 700 and 701.
The feasibility study estimates that $4.3 million would be saved by consolidating the facilities, according to the fact sheet. The handout addressed various customer concerns, noting that retail and other postal services available at the New Orleans post office adjacent to the distribution center will not change at this time. Mail acceptance times may change, however.
Landrieu opened the public comment session, citing the same city investments, and pointed out the hardships New Orleanians have suffered through Katrina and the losses from the job cuts at Michoud Assembly Facility in the wake of NASA's termination of the space shuttle program and the impending closure of Northrop Grumman's Avondale shipyard.
The mayor argued that he hoped the city could come to a similar agreement with the Postal Service that it did with the U.S. military in the midst of the Navy Support Activity's Algiers base closing, by creating the federal city project.
Spokesman Ryan Berni said in September that the same day postal officials announced the possible merger, Landrieu administration officials had reached out to the White House, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans, and Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson. They also had directed the city's Washington lobbyists to make a top priority of keeping the facility open, he said.
If the merger goes through, most New Orleans employees would be offered similar positions in Baton Rouge and about 120 employees would be reassigned to nearby post offices in Louisiana or other states, Boyd said. A meeting will be held at the facility Thursday for employees to have questions answered about their specific situations, Taylor said.
Landrieu argued that it would not be wise to close that facility when the city is investing money in streetcar developments to bring more private development to the Loyola Avenue corridor.
Work has begun on a $45 million streetcar line along Loyola from Canal Street to the Union Passenger Terminal.
The mayor's top aide, Andy Kopplin, announced in August that the city and state were planning to create a long-term vision for the Loyola Avenue corridor, with the city planning to use $100,000 from the 2011 Economic Development Fund to study downtown planning.
Additional projects include a $275 million redevelopment of the Hyatt Regency Hotel and the creation of a sports entertainment zone between the hotel and the Superdome.
Katie Urbaszewski can be reached at kurbaszewski@timespicayune.com.