PMUA mailer underscores disinvestment in Plainfield

Disqualifying partial postal indicia set sleuthing afoot.

Problems with the PMUA's mailer sent Plainfield Today on a sleuthing expedition that ended up underscoring continuing corporate disinvestment in Plainfield.

The first wave, of course, began in the 1960s (no, Virginia, it was NOT INSTIGATED by the riot), with the closure of the Mack Truck plant on West Front Street (1961).

But the trail the PMUA mailer led me on put the focus on a second, more silent and insidious slide.

The Rahway postal permit in the indicia is NOT AN INDICATOR one way or the other that the PMUA is not using Plainfield's local mailing house.

Why?

Because, in its wisdom, the United States Postal Service has TERMINATED the Plainfield P.O.'s ability to accept bulk mailings. Quietly, last fall, probably about the same time that Plainfield's postal branches' window hours were reduced --

New window hours for the Netherwood branch.




New window hours for the Muhlenberg branch.




New window hours for the Station A branch.

You will note not all branches' hours are cut.

The reduced window hours are just the tip of the iceberg.

All bulk mailings now originating in Plainfield -- from the barely qualifying minimum number of pieces by small churches and nonprofits to the millions of pieces dropped annually by the local mailing house -- must now be schlepped either to Rahway or Newark.

The inconvenience to the mailers is the least of it.

The loss of income to the local 07060 ZIP code -- estimated by a person in the business to run into the millions for the Plainfield P.O. alone -- will weaken Plainfield's position vis-a-vis other postal centers like Rahway in the (inevitable) next round of cuts of service to be made by the U.S.P.S.

Since I have lived in Plainfield, residents and taxpayers have suffered the indignity (and tax consequences) of the following DISINVESTMENT decisions --

MACY*S

Plainfield's Macy's was a profitable operation (per a marketing exec who lived in Plainfield at the time) when a corporate decision was made to close it -- and the Morristown location -- to shunt business to the new store in the Bridgewater Commons. The bottom line to the taxpayers? New owners successfully appealed the property's assessment, reducing the ratables to the City by 75%. Guess who picked up the slack?

FOODTOWN

When Royal Dutch Ahold bought the Foodtown chain, the Plainfield store on South Avenue was shut down, the new owners saying they needed 40,000+ square feet for a location. A larger Stop & Shop (subsuming Foodtown) opened on Inman Avenue in Edison in its place. The property sat vacant for years before being subdivided. This is the location Mayor Robinson-Briggs is saying C-Town will open as a new location by April, 2010.

NATIONAL STARCH

Once an industrial powerhouse (second only to Mack Trucks as a Plainfield employer), the British conglomerate Unilever closed its Plainfield plant rather than modernize it, taking hundreds of jobs to its Finderne location.

COZZOLI MACHINE

With a decades-long history in Plainfield, Cozzoli Machine Works moved out to a larger location in Somerset County, taking its well-paying jobs with it, and leaving behind a vacant industrial building.

TOWNLEY LABS

In its ineffable wisdom, the Schools Construction Corporation (remember them?) forced the relocation from West Front Street of this profitable local business and its local employees in order to take over the premises for a 'swing' school to handle shuffling students around during the construction and renovation of several school buildings. Loss to the taxpayers? $400,000/year in ratables. The SCC did this despite an argument that a better location was the old Wardlaw-Hartridge campus (already off the tax rolls). In a sop to Mayor McWilliams, the SCC promised the Townley property would be returned to the tax rolls when there was no further need for a 'swing' school. Can you guess what has happened to that promise?

MUHLENBERG

The closure of Muhlenberg RMC can also be seen as a corporate disinvestment decision (by its parent, Solaris Health System), which led not only to the loss of 1,100 jobs, but to the withering of the 'doctor's row' of medical and allied offices along Park Avenue. If you're a trickle-down enthusiast, you can see the effects of the closing trickling down from unemployment and medical office traffic to a dampened retail climate throughout the city.

RAMCO

RAMCO? The biggest little employer you never heard of in Plainfield. RAMCO was a manufacturer of gutters and downspouting located on South Avenue between Berckman and Richmond Streets. Low-key, successful (one of their main income streams was manufacturing these items for Sears). While the City was paying no attention to RETAINING this business, it was bought up by a Pennsylvania firm and the couple hundred jobs in Plainfield went elsewhere over a year ago. The building is still empty and for sale.

These are all what I would call PRIMARY DISINVESTMENTS in Plainfield, decisions made by corporate types with a direct and measurable influence.

The Postal Service does not yet rise to this level, but the indications are quite clear -- and ominous.

USPS is struggling to find a viable business model as more and more transactions are moving to the internet (email is killing letters, online bill-paying is killing monthly payments) and alternative package carriers (UPS and FedEx have eaten up the market).

Reduced hours for local branches and the loss of millions in local bulk mailing income are only positioning the Postal Service for what I fear is an inevitable further disinvestment in Plainfield.

Maybe we can find a developer to turn the main P.O. into high-rise condominiums?

With historic WPA murals in the lobby?

---

• Plainfield Today: "Why your PMUA mailer may not be in your mailbox"
  

-- Dan Damon [follow]

View today's CLIPS here. Not getting your own CLIPS email daily? Click here to subscribe.