Cost of Bryan mail center big factor in possible closing

U.S. Postal Service managers explained a proposal Tuesday to shut down Bryan's mail processing center and move its operations to Houston or Austin, a move projected to eliminate around 40 local jobs and save at least $4 million a year.

"We just can't afford these big plants anymore because we don't have the volume of mail to support them," said Jeffrey Taylor, the U.S. Postal Service district manager in Houston. "This is happening all over the country."

The remarks came at a spirited public meeting held Tuesday night at the Brazos Center in Bryan attended by around 50 people who voiced a litany of concerns, including the impact on employees and some mail processing taking a day longer under the proposal.

"I hate to see us lower our standards," said Wendy Halliwell, a custodian at the Bryan post office who has been working with the U.S. Postal Service for more than 15 years.

She also voiced a common frustration from people who believed the decision for closure has already been made and the meeting was just a formality: "We're basically wasting our time here."

Since October, mail sent locally -- even if it's to a local address -- has been processed at the north Houston plant. That means that letters sent in town zip down to Houston first.

It's a move that was made as the U.S. Postal Service has suffered a tectonic shift to online and other digital communication. First-class mail volume has decreased 50 percent over the past 10 years, and that trend is expected to continue.

The Bryan processing center and nine others in Texas are among 252 nationwide studied for closure. Combined with other moves, the effort is expected to save $3 billion as the U.S. Postal Service is struggling to stay afloat amid financial losses.

The U.S. Postal Service would remain open in Bryan and retail operations won't be affected. But processing equipment would be moved.

The changes are being studied, and two options are being considered: moving Bryan's operations to a plant in north Houston, saving $4 million a year, or to Austin, saving $5.7 million a year, Taylor said.

Under the proposal, mail from a non-local address to a local one also would first be processed through either Houston or Austin. Savings will result from a more efficient use of mail-processing equipment, Taylor said.

But processing for first-class mail will in some cases take an extra day, from one-to-three days to two-to-three days. A piece of mail sent from Bryan to College Station, for instance, generally only takes a day, but under the new proposal would take two.

The extra day comes from a national shift. Instead of six hours a day, processing centers will run 20 hours, which, officials say, triples the production ability with the same amount of equipment but pushes back delivery times.

The impact on jobs lost in Bryan would be the same in either scenario, Taylor said. Around five employees would be hired in Austin or Houston, meaning the move would result in the net loss of 35 jobs.

Ervin "Ben" Flencher Jr., president and CEO of Citizens State Bank in Somerville, was at a meeting prior to the public one in which postal officials addressed concerns from volume mailers.

"I don't want anyone to lose their job," he said, "but I appreciate the fact that the postal system has taken whatever requirements they need to stay in business and save the taxpayer money."

Tim Hurley, president of the local chapter of the American Postal Workers Union, said his union's contract states that workers who have been employed by the U.S. Postal Service for six years can't be laid off and can't be made to move more than 50 miles from where they work. Roughly 60 of the 133 employees of the U.S. Postal Service in Bryan are under an APWU contract, Hurley said.

A spokeswoman for the Houston district of the U.S. Postal Service said the employees whose jobs are eliminated would be relocated to vacant positions, according to how their union contract is written.

But Hurley expressed skepticism that those employees would be placed into jobs that are productive.

"They don't have 40 vacancies within 50 miles," he said. "If they do, that would be news to everyone, everywhere."