Elected leaders, businesses fight mail-processing center closure

The clock is ticking for the Flandro Drive mail-processing center in Pocatello.

The U.S. Postal Service tentatively plans to stop processing mail there on April 18, and instead reroute all mail to the Salt Lake City processing center. It’s one of 82 cost-cutting consolidations planned for this year.

Thursday elected leaders and businesses from across eastern Idaho vowed to stop the move, fearing delays in mail delivery.

“We need to create a grassroots outcry heard very loudly in Salt Lake City and Washington, D.C., that rural Idaho will not be discriminated against,” said Pocatello Mayor Brian Blad.

“As you look at what happens here in Pocatello related to the mail, it’s gonna be the same issue in Blackfoot,” said Blackfoot Mayor Paul Loomis.

Some are estimating mail could take as long as three to 10 days to arrive to its destination if it has to be sorted in Salt Lake. But USPS spokesman Brian Sperry told Local News 8 all first-class mail would only take the standard two days.

But many remain unconvinced and worry the move could hurt small businesses.

“It’ll negatively impact their ability to advertise and put sales on because now their fliers would be complicated at the least in their delivery,” said John Regetz, executive director of the Bannock Development Corporation.

Lance Buttars, who owns Molinelli’s Jewelers in Old Town Pocatello, said he recently invested more than $1 million in the community. But he said he might not have done so had he known mail would no longer be processed in Pocatello.

“Pulling a service as basic as mail delivery is hamstringing the effort of small business to restart and be viable in the economy,” said Buttars.

Oscar Noreen, a 75-year-old veteran with rheumatoid arthritis, said he depends on the postal service to receive his medications.

“There’s a whole bunch of pills that I get through the mail,” said Noreen. “They can’t close. Let’s put it that way.”

But USPS insists the consolidations are necessary.

“First-class mail bearing postage stamps … is down more than 50 percent,” said Sperry, who added the postal service lost $26 billion over the last three years.

Sperry said closing the 82 processing centers is expected to save $2.1 billion.

“We’re talking about saving money versus saving service, and I think the service outweighs saving the money,” said John Paige, president of the Idaho State Association of Letter Carriers.

While processing will cease, the Flandro Drive center will remain open as a regular post office.

Paige told Local News 8 around 40 employees would have to be reassigned.

Processing centers in Rocks Springs, Wyoming, and Provo, Utah, will also be consolidated into the Salt Lake center.