Postal Service silliness

Minot (N.D.) Daily News: The U.S. Postal Service is forging ahead with its ill-conceived plan to close hundreds of mail processing centers across the country, including facilities in Minot and Devils Lake.

The decision will make the U.S. Postal Service even less necessary, and it will mean fewer customers, leading to even more financial problems down the road.

The Postal Service said it will save about $2.8 million annually by closing the Minot processing center and moving those functions to Bismarck, and another $221,000 by moving the sorting from Devils Lake to Grand Forks. What postal officials don’t say is how much revenue they’ll lose because of the closures; it will be significant. The closures also mean first-class mail will likely take two or three days to deliver instead of overnight.

How’s that for customer service?

As it announces the mail processing closures, the Postal Service also continues to press Congress for permission to drop Saturday delivery and raise the price of a stamp by 5 cents. We wonder if officials would miraculously change their minds on the closures if they got their way on dropping Saturday delivery, which they have been virtually demanding for years.

Congress should not give in to such blackmail, of course, nor should Congress allow closures of centers like the one in Minot. As this city grows, and western North Dakota booms with business and population, reducing postal service here makes absolutely no sense.