LETTER | South Dakota should demand USPS save distribution centers

Please contact The United States Postal Service to give your input on the transfer of the Regional Processing Center from Sioux Falls to Omaha, Nebraska and from Huron to Fargo, North Dakota, and extend the comment period. It will definitely impact the service by their own admission. If what the USPS says is true, we must give them our opinions. Sioux Falls is one of the fastest growing cities in the nation, and it will lose its regional distribution center. This does not make any sense.

The deadline for comments must be extended because so many people were not made aware of these proposals by the USPS. Why did not they put a  notification in each persons mailbox? Why were there so many questions that were answered with “that issue is yet to be decided?” Why not use local-only mailboxes to save turnaround time for deliveries? Millions of Americans and American businesses depend on USPS for timely delivery of their letters and packages. Why would the current USPS  reorganization plan knowingly jeopardize the timeliness of our mail service?

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If the postal workers at the existing Regional Distribution Centers are unable to transfer to Fargo or Omaha Regional Distribution centers, will they lose their jobs? Will updating of processing machines save time and increase sorting efficiencies? How can a 180-mile, one-way trip to Omaha and Fargo with unsorted mail and subsequent trips back to South Dakota with sorted mail not delay delivery time to customers? Why would USPS not use their own First Class delivery mail service for customers to give input? Why did USPS not have a late afternoon or evening meeting to get more public input?

Why were so many of the South Dakota media organizations and citizens unaware of the meetings and public internet survey?  These are just a few of the concerns raised at the Sioux Falls meeting on March 13.

Your input needs to be heard.

Peggy Gibson, Huron
Mark Anderson, Sioux Falls
BJ Motley, Sioux Falls
Frank Kloucek, Scotland