The United States Postal Service announced in a press release yesterday that it may not close the Fayetteville processing and distribution center. The change is the result of a proposed strategy from USPS that is currently under review with the Postal Regulatory Commission, according to the release, and is estimated to save the postal service nearly $3 billion a year.
Last year, USPS proposed a plan to relocate some operations to Oklahoma City and downgrade the northwest Arkansas facility to a local processing center. The move would have relocated at least 13 jobs to Oklahoma, cut services and routed all local mail through the Oklahoma City center. The decision faced pushback from residents and members of the American Postal Workers Union 667 out of Fayetteville, who protested the move in May. If approved, the new strategy would also boost some services to the northwest Arkansas center thanks to a $3.3 million investment from USPS. According to the press release, those changes would include expanded package mailing and shipping, express services, bulk and permit mailing and improvements to the building.
Ozarks at Large reached out to Representative Steve Womack, who said the “proposed new strategy is a shift in the right direction and certainly better than the initial proposal. I’m encouraged to hear that there are no anticipated career layoffs or impacts on employees, and that the USPS appears to be responding to the concerns I shared with Postmaster General DeJoy.”
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. The authoritative record of KUAF programming is the audio record.
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