USPS moves ahead with plan to move processing out of GJ
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KREX) — The United States Postal Service announced Tuesday night it’s moving forward with plans to transfer outgoing mail processing operations from Grand Junction to Denver, turning the processing and distribution center into a local processing center.
They’re going to move processing operations from Grand Junction to the Denver processing center to be processed. This is going to cause nothing but delays.
Shane McDonnell
USPS said the plan will improve mail operations at the Grand Junction processing facility by modernizing the current processing and distribution center facility and turning it into a local processing center.
Western Colorado Area Local, the Grand Junction post workers’ union disagrees. “Mailers and local businesses who use the postal service, they’re going to go to outside sources that are basically able to streamline their services more effectively than us. Our bathrooms and lighting aren’t going to have an effect on those changes,” the Vice President of Western Colorado Area Local Shane McDonnell told WesternSlopeNow.
Today if you went out to send a letter to Rifle from Grand Junction mail carriers would pick it up, and bring it back for processing in Grand Junction. Then carriers would deliver it the next day.
McDonnell says that wouldn’t be the case under the new plan. “With these changes, the mail will be collected, be sent to Junction it will be offloaded onto a truck be sent to Denver, get into their processing cue, be processed then sent back over the mountains back to the junction facility,” all before the letter reaches its final destination McDonnell said.
WesternSlopeNow reached out to a spokesperson for USPS about the decision to move ahead with plans to makeover the Grand Junction Post Office.
We asked these questions:
What solidified this decision?
What impact did public comment have on the decision?
What is the timeline for the project?
The spokesperson responded, “I do not have the answers for what solidified the decision, what impact did public comment have, or what the timeline is for this project.”
They added.
It is important to note that all incoming mail volume i.e. checks, medications, packages etc. will not change with this process. Local mail, meaning mail originating in the Grand Junction area that is also destined to that region (mail addressed to the same local area), will not be delayed under this plan. While this mail would travel first to Denver to be processed before returning to the Grand Junction LPC, it is important to know that local mail has a two-day service standard, and this mail would continue to be processed and delivered in two days.
USPS spokesperson
The union said in theory it is possible to turn around mail from the Western Slope to Denver and back to the Western Slope within the two-day standard. “It is possible under ideal conditions. I don’t think these are ideal conditions and with i-70 problems and with processing operations in Denver, I do not think that is going to happen,” McDonnell said, “At least a majority of the time.”
USPS records show that 1,485 people submitted comments about the new USPS facility plan.
We’ve had petitions signed by over 4,000 people. The general public does not want this to happen.
Shane McDonnell
WesternslopeNow will keep following this story and report on any further developments.
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