Portland City Council members are urging the United States Postal Service to hold a public hearing on proposed changes to the local mail delivery system.
The USPS, led by Postmaster Louis DeJoy, plans to create new sorting and delivery centers as part of DeJoy’s 10-year Delivering for America plan.
Starting in June, Beaverton’s Evergreen Post Office will become the local sorting and delivery center. Postal worker advocates said the change will force letter carriers to commute out to Beaverton just to return into Portland to deliver mail.
“At a time when this council and our community and business partners are doing all we can to ensure our city recovers and comes back strong, it goes without saying that the hub for postal activity should remain in the state’s largest city and close to the Portland International Airport,” Portland City Commissioner Carmen Rubio said at a Feb. 7 meeting.
The Postal Service’s consolidations into sorting and delivering hubs will “displace letter carriers from neighborhood post offices (“spokes”), forcing long commutes and travel times while eliminating clerk, trucker and supervisor positions and reducing service or closing local post offices,” the resolution approved by the Portland City Council stated.