BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — The United States Postal Service announced that as part of a $40 billion investment strategy to "upgrade and improve the Postal processing, transportation, and delivery networks," it is conducting an evaluation of operations and potential future uses of its Buffalo Processing & Distribution Center on William Street.
USPS said that the initial results of the facility review support keeping the William Street facility open and modernizing it as a Local Processing Center (LPC).
"The Buffalo LPC will be a critical node to the unified movement of mail and packages across the regional processing and transportation ecosystem. The facility will offer expanded and streamlined package processing capabilities in the local market and new workplace amenities for USPS employees," a release says.
In addition, USPS said the business case supports transferring some mail processing operations to the Rochester P&DC.
But there is worry over what will happen with the facility on William Street. David Grosskopf Jr., President of the National Association of Letter Carriers in Buffalo, said he's concerned that USPS supports modernizing this facility as a local processing center.
This means the process of sorting your mail could go to the Rochester processing and distribution center before reaching its final destination.
"There's a lot of angst, a lot of anxiety," Grosskopf said. "Somebody has yet to explain to me how sending a letter from Tonawanda to Buffalo back to Tonawanda is slower than sending a letter from Tonawanda to Rochester back to Tonawanda."
If the mail were to go about an hour down the 90, Grosskopf said he worries your mail would be delayed.
"There's quite a few people that rely on our postal service and delivery network every single day to provide them whether it's their you know, a check, whether it's their prescription, whether it's some type of package and slowing that service standard down even more. It's just not the way to go," he said.
Frank Resetarits, President of the American Postal Workers Union in Buffalo, is also worried about mail delays.
"What we're concerned about is the service to the public, the service that the public knows right now is in jeopardy," he said.
Resetarits said at the moment there's no major concern that this could bring layoffs, but once the final results of this review are shared he said all bets are off.
"Before we can even guess that, we have to know how much mail is going and how it would affect staff. But we don't even have the basics of what mail is under review," he said.
The USPS will hold a public meeting on January 31 at 3 p.m. at the Creekside Banquet Facility located at 2669 Union Road in Cheektowaga.
According to USPS, it will "share the initial results of the study and allow members of the community to provide additional oral feedback and perspectives on the Initial Findings of the Mail Processing Facility Review (MPFR)." A summary of the MPFR will be posted on about.usps.com at least one week before the public input meeting.
You can submit written comments at the following link through February 15.
