Rockford Postal Service Consolidation Forum

Monday, June 5, 2006 at 6:30 pm there will be a public forum held to give input into the moving of the Rockford postal processing service to the Palatine facility. Congressman Don Manzullo helped create this venue to give the citizens and postal workers of the area an opportunity to let the US Postal Service know what our views are. 50-100 jobs will be possibly reassigned to facilities within a 100 mile radius if this measure is approved not to mention the possibility of poorer service.

The counties that would be affected by the potential processing center move include Winnebago, Boone, Stephenson, Jodaviess, Carroll, Whiteside and Ogle. The open forum will be held on Monday night, June 5, at 6:30 at the Northern Illinois University Rockford Education Center. The center is located at 8500 E. State Street in Rockford.



Link to Congressman Manzullo's House site:

http://manzullo.house.gov

February 16, 2006

Manzullo: Postal Service Agrees to Weigh Public Concerns on Proposal to Reroute Rockford Mail Through Palatine

[WASHINGTON] Calling it a "tremendous victory for the people of northern Illinois," Congressman Don Manzullo (R-IL) today said the U.S. Postal Service has agreed to hold a public forum in Rockford to consider the people's concerns on the proposal to transfer mail processing operations from Rockford to Palatine.

Manzullo met this afternoon with U.S. Postmaster General Jack Potter, who informed Manzullo that the Postal Service was extremely concerned about prior evidence Manzullo had submitted on the Rockford "Area Mail Processing" study. To hear further concerns from the people, the Postal Service decided to hold a public forum in Rockford. The study that will determine the feasibility of transferring the work will resume and a public forum will be scheduled in Rockford. The study will be completed by July 1, the Postal Service said.

"This is a tremendous victory for the postal workers whose jobs have been threatened and for the people of northern Illinois because the Postal Service has now agreed -- for the first time -- to listen and consider their concerns," Manzullo said. "I know the evidence we have collected to date and continue to collect each day will help the Postal Service realize that transferring Rockford operations to Palatine would be huge mistake."

Potter added, "These are changing times for the Postal Service. The hard copy mail marketplace is evolving and changing, and we need to explore options to keep our costs as low as practicable. Our goals are two-fold: first, to provide the highest level of universal service at affordable rates, and thus we have a fiduciary responsibility to consider all alternatives; second, to ensure that we continue to maintain the level of service our customers in Rockford are accustomed to."

Last December, the Postal Service announced it was conducting the study to determine whether to reroute all outgoing mail from zip codes starting in 610 and 611 through the Palatine sorting center near Chicago instead of the Rockford center. Affected zip codes include communities in Boone, Winnebago, Stephenson, JoDaviess, Carroll, Whiteside, Ogle and Lee counties. The postal service was scheduled to complete the study in late December 2005 and announce a course of action in January 2006. The Rockford study is one of dozens the Postal Service is conducting around the United States.

During a meeting in late December, Manzullo was able to convince the postal service to halt the study and delay its decision to give him and the people of northern Illinois an opportunity to show why the Postal Service should continue processing mail in Rockford. Since then, he has received scores of letters from citizens in the region explaining their tremendous satisfaction with the Rockford mail processing operations as well as serious delays they have experienced when their mail has been routed through Palatine. In addition to the delays, more than 50 jobs would be lost in Rockford if operations were shifted to Palatine. The change would also eliminate the Rockford postmark.

Manzullo has rallied the support of U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Congressman Lane Evans (D-IL), and U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Barack Obama (D-IL) in his quest to keep mail processing operations in Rockford. In addition, Manzullo has collected resolutions of support from 13 municipalities and two counties in northern Illinois.

As Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Small Business, Manzullo had contemplated holding a committee field hearing in Rockford to examine the problems the mail processing study would cause for area small businesses. The Postal Service's decision to have a public forum in Rockford has eliminated the need for the field hearing.