Woodstock Early Bird The Early Bird Gets the Worm: earlybirdtips@gmail.com

Over 500 people, including Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin and Vermont’s  entire Congressional delegation, Sen. Patrick Leahy, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch,  showed up at the White River Junction American Legion Post on Wednesday to denounce U.S. Postal Service  plans to shut a  mail processing facility in White River.

The U.S. Postal Service has put the WRJ facility  on a  list of 252 mail processing plants that may  be closed this year, as part of a plan to slash USPS expenses by close to $8 million annually.

What this would mean close to home, according to U.S. officials at the meeting, would be  the loss of 51 net jobs at the mail facility in White River Junction.  Several other regional  news outlets,  including www.VTdigger.org , has put the real number of people losing  jobs at close to 250.   The  U.S. Postal Service says the mail currently processed in WRJ would instead be sent up to Burlington, Vermont  for processing.

In addition to their discontent with possible post office closures, the crowd strongly opposed separate plans to lengthen First Class Mail delivery times to 2-3 days, which many said would only hasten the demise of the U.S. Postal Service.

This Woodstock Early Bird saw our own (Woodstock’s)  Eddie English join the crowd in opposing the proposal to slow mail delivery. English  said, “I don’t have a computer. I depend on the mail.”  A number of people pointed out that even in this day and age of the internet  not everyone in the Upper Valley  has computer access for personal mail or for sending important documents.

Nationwide, U.S. Postal Service officials say the cuts and other changes are  needed to keep the entire U.S. Postal Service  operation financially viable.

Deborah Essler, who oversees this  region of the U.S Postal Service, says  the agency would do everything it can to move workers who lose their jobs in White River Junction  to nearby postal offices. WEB knows of at least one family – local to the immediate Woodstock area – who would be impacted by these cuts.

In Woodstock and surrounding Upper Valley towns,  no cuts are p lanned at local P.O’s. to date. However,  Tom Rizzo, a U.S. Postal Service official based in Portland, Maine, says  the nearest post office to the Woodstock area is Stockbridge on a list slated for possible closure.

 U.S. Postal Service officials told the crowd at the the White River Junction meeting  that no final decisions  have been made. .

As Postal Service officials found out and this Woodstock Early Bird observed, the, White River Junction  crowd wasn’t messing around  Wednesday night. While the U.S.Postal Service  presenters made their case (including a long-winded presentation with fancy graphics), the crowd clamored to be heard, with shouts of “When do we get to speak?!”

Before a long line of local residents and workers stepped up to the microphone, the crowd was treated to a couple of “zingers” offered up by some well-known attendees: A Vermont Delta-Force  quad-umvirate of Shumlin, Leahy, Sanders and Welch.

Shumlin, who knows how to construct pithy, crowd-pleasing  soundbites,  really got the crowd going with this one:

“We need the Postal Service more than anyone in America. Keep the Postal Service, keep it strong, and go somewhere else to find pretend savings.”

Nationwide, 100,000 people would lose their jobs if USPS cuts go through.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, as usual, wasted no time in giving his opinion – touching on the nationwide unemployment situation:

“It is categorically insane to be talking about throwing 100,000 people (across the country)  out of work,” Sanders said.

Later this month, Sen. Sanders and Sen. Leahy will introduce a bill to reorganize – not cut – the Postal Service. They also want to turn back a previously-passed federal bill that requires the U.S. Postal Service to pay $5.5 billion a year toward the health care of future USPS retirees. Welch, thanked the local postal workers for their dedication, said he stands ready to support the upcoming bill in the House.

Today, the U.S. Postal Service  is a $3 trillion industry that employs 8 million people nationwide, according to Essler.

WEB will keep everyone up to speed on the status of the White River Junction  facility and  if more Upper Valley  P.O.’s make it onto the list to be axed in the future.

Congress has put a moratorium on any plans for U.S. Postal Service office  closures until May 15.