Netherwood Postal Station meeting today

Public comment on proposal to close Netherwood postal station is today.

Plainfield's Netherwood Postal Station's public comment session is today, from 5:30 to 6:30 PM at the Main Post Office, Watchung Avenue at East 2nd Street (parking available on the street and on North Avenue by the train station).

This is the final opportunity for Plainfield postal customers to comment on the USPS' plans to close both the Muhlenberg and the Netherwood branches as part of a consolidation of operations being driven by drastically falling revenues.

The meeting on the Muhlenberg Station held last month drew about fifteen customers who had sharp questions for Postal authorities about the proposed closing, including how rental postal boxes would be handled and what alternative service locations would be available to residents of the Muhlenberg station area (Answer: none very close).

With two armed Postal Police officers bracketing the front and back doors during the meeting, numerous postal mucky-mucks handing out and gathering comment forms, and a defensive presentation and Q&A session by an area official, it was not the model of a perfect community feedback session.

Tonight's meeting comes on the heels of news of the Postal Service's proposal to close half of its system of distribution centers (story was broken by the Washington Post, see here), plus stories in today's papers that Edison's Kilmer distribution center is also facing closure (see Courier story here and Ledger story here).

Whether tonight's meeting will be any better than the Muhlenberg session is anyone's guess.

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• Washington Post: "Facing bankruptcy, Postal Service plans unprecedented cuts"
  
• Courier:  "Edison postal distribution center being eyed for closure" 
• Ledger:  "Postal workers on edge as closures are pondered"
  

-- Dan Damon [follow]

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