US Postal Service postpones public meeting as changes proposed for Lubbock center

A public meeting scheduled for Wednesday to discuss proposed changes to the U.S. Postal Service's Lubbock processing facility has been postponed as postal officials work to finalize specific details of their plans.

The meeting was intended to gather input on a Mail Processing Facility Review (MPFR), a study which includes discussions of whether the USPS should move some of its processing operations to Amarillo from Lubbock. The forum was initially scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, but the postal service announced late last week it would reschedule the meeting sometime "within the next several weeks." The new date and time have not yet been announced.

"The MPFR will assess how this facility can best support the Postal Service’s service and operational goals and provide a platform to launch new products and competitive services for mailing and shipping customers in the future," USPS said in a notice published to its website. "The Postal Service will also evaluate if efficiency could be increased by transferring some mail processing operations currently performed at the Lubbock (Processing and Distribution Center) to the Amarillo P&DC."

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Though it has not yet published a detailed plan, USPS has summarized its preliminary plans for the Lubbock facility by suggesting the Lubbock Processing and Distribution Center would remain open but could be restructured with simplified processes as a Local Distribution Center while some of the Lubbock processing would be consolidated into the Amarillo center.

"The facility will offer expanded and streamlined package processing capabilities in the local market and new workplace amenities for USPS employees," the notice reads.

USPS said any proposed changes would have "minimal impact to customer service" and would not lead to layoffs locally, but leadership with Lubbock's American Postal Workers Union Local 952 told the Avalanche-Journal they are concerned the changes could slow mail delivery and cost local postal workers their jobs.

"Essentially what they're doing is trying to cut costs within the post office. They're claiming that this is going to save money," said Gabriel Benitez, APWU Local 952 president. "But our biggest concern is that this ensures we'll never be able to improve mail delivery across the nation … and if we do that, it's going to cause the post office to say 'we need to cut jobs now.'

"As a workforce union, we're thinking it's going to cost the Lubbock community millions of dollars over the next five to 10 years just on wages alone."

USPS will continue to gather comments utilizing an online form through Feb. 15. The comment form is available at surveymonkey.com/r/mpfr-lubbock-tx. The rescheduled meeting will be announced at about.usps.com.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Postal Service postpones public meeting on proposed Lubbock changes