Valley residents should unite against cuts by postal service

The Mahoning Valley isn’t shy about letting its voice be heard by decision-makers, either in the federal government or corporate America. In the late 1980s, the region made a strong pitch for a new assembly plant General Motors Corp. was building to produce the Saturn. Although Spring Hill, Tenn., was ultimately selected, GM officials conceded that the hundreds of bags of mail it received from this region overwhelmed the world headquarters in Detroit. They appealed to residents to end the letter-writing campaign because the message had been received loud and clear.

Then there was the effort to secure a Defense Finance and Accounting Services regional facility during the administration of President Bill Clinton. The proposal developed by the public and private sectors scored the highest of any submitted to the Pentagon, but Democrat Clinton succumbed to pressure from powerful members of Congress who saw the regional DFAS center as replacing the smaller offices scattered around the country.

Finally, there was the successful fight to prevent the closure of the U.S. Air Force Reserve Base in Vienna Township, a major employer in the Valley and a significant contributor to the economy.

Congressman Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th., like his predecessor, James A. Traficant Jr., has correctly concluded that if the federal government continues to spend millions of dollars to expand and upgrade the base, the Defense Department will be hard-pressed to shut it down. Ryan led the successful fight against the latest round of base closings, but the future remains uncertain.

The voice of the Valley will have to be heard again.

As a rehearsal, residents should join together in opposing the U.S. Postal Service’s plan to move its mail processing and distribution operation from the central post office in downtown Youngstown to Akron or Cleveland, and to close two retail post offices — on Youngstown’s North Side, and the Calcutta office in East Liverpool.

While it is true that the postal service, because of operating losses of $8.5 billion in fiscal 2010, has no choice but to reassess its entire operation, it is just as true that communities in economically challenged Mahoning Valley should not have to bear the burden of cuts.

Service consolidation

Earlier this year, the service consolidated Youngstown’s South Side and East Side distribution centers.

If the latest plan goes unchallenged, 500 jobs in the processing and distribution center downtown would be lost, at a cost of $500,000 in city income tax revenue.

And if the North Side and Calcutta branches are closed, customers would be inconvenienced, in addition to jobs being eliminated.

But before any final decisions are made, the postal service is soliciting the public’s input as part of a study of the closings.

Comments from Valley residents should be submitted to Consumer and Industry contact manager, U.S. Postal Service Northern Ohio District, 2400 Orange Ave., Room 25, Cleveland, Ohio 44101-9631.

We shouldn’t give up without a fight. And lest any residents in the communities not affected by the decision this year think they’ve dodged a bullet, they would do well to consider this:

The projected losses for 2011 are $6.4 billion.