by Gerri Peterson
A public meeting was held last Thursday, March 28 at the Sandhills Convention Center in North Platte regarding possible changes to the U.S. Postal Service’s North Platte Processing and Distribution Center.
Around 120 people attended the meeting from North Platte and several other surrounding communities. Currently the North Platte P&DC handles mail from down to Kansas, up to Valentine, west to Scottsbluff and east to Cozad.
Two USPS employees ran the meeting and said nothing has been decided yet about the North Platte facility.
However, the slide show that was presented gave information about changing North Platte to a Local Processing Center. One of the changes that would impact Hooker County residents the most would be outgoing mail and packages being sent to the Denver P&DC.
To read the case for the North Platte LPC, go to https://about.usps.com/what/strategic-plans/mpfr/documents/initial-findings-north-platte-ne-03-19-2024.rtf.
The slide show stated that retail and other services currently available at the North Platte facility will remain unchanged and a local postmark will continue to be available at retail locations in North Platte.
During the slide show it was stated that local mail would not be delayed under this plan, with two day delivery standard still expected. The crowd definitely disagreed with that statement.
Following the slide show, the public was invited to share opinions and viewpoints during the public comment that was all recorded as part of the USPS review of the facility. Some of the questions that were asked to the USPS were answered, while others were not.
Over and over again comments were made about how we don’t have two day service now and many stories were told about package tracking showing out of the way stops and sitting in the same place for days.
One of the first concerns brought up during public comment was for those receiving medications in the mail and them not being delivered on time.
The slide show said USPS plans to invest $4-6 million in the North Platte LPC to modernize the facility, with an estimated annual savings of $1.5-1.9 million after changing over to the LPC including $60,000-80,000 in mail processing, $300,000-400,000 in maintenance, $1-1.3 million in transportation and $90,000-120,000 in management. Several public comments were made questioning those figures.
Concerns were brought up about how the interstate closes between North Platte and Denver several times a year with weather, which will delay mail even further.
Perhaps the most popular quote during the public comment was, “Denver is a black hole.”
It was questioned what studies have been done to show that Denver’s P&DC can handle the extra mail and suggested to send mail to Omaha if they have to send it out of North Platte to at least keep it in Nebraska.
One North Platte resident pointed out that the community is expanding, so the outgoing mail will increase, adding, “Everybody else is investing here, you guys need to too.”
If you have an opinion on this topic, fill out the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/mpfr-north-platte-ne by Friday, April 12.
