berkeley main post office public meeting subcommittee...public meeting the purpose of this meeting...

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Berkeley Main Post Office

Public Meeting

September 13, 2012

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Why we are here

39 CFR 241.4

Decision Making Process

Cost Avoidance While Maintaining Service

Financial Climate of Postal Service

Community Input

Public Meeting

Written Comment Period

Next Steps

Q&A/Comments

Agenda

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Why we are here

39 CFR 241.4 – Public Meeting

The purpose of this meeting is to assure increased opportunities for members of the community who may be affected by the project, along with local officials, to convey their views concerning the contemplated project and have them considered prior to any final decision.

Share information

Listen to comments

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Financial Climate of Postal Service

Volume

Price Labor Costs

Universal Service

Obligation

Non-competitive services

capped by rate of inflation

Postal network driven by:

Delivery points

Retail locations

Mail processing facilities

Unique future retiree

prefunding obligation

These trends will

continue to put

pressure on USPS’s

ability to provide

affordable universal

service

Declining

steadily First Class Mail volume

decline of 25% since 2006

Mail mix changes –

lower profit contributions

Fixed Cost

Base

Rising but

capped

Legislation

needed

5

98

78

53

39

0

25

50

75

100

125

2006 2010 2016 2020

103

83 82 81

0

25

50

75

100

125

2006 2010 2016 2020

First-Class Mail Standard Mail

Financial Climate of Postal Service

Mail Volume Shifting to Less Profitable Mix

Volume in Billions of Pieces

(Source: Boston Consulting Group)

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Net Losses of over $25 billion past five years, despite

removing nearly $14 billion from annual cost base during the same period

Low cash levels, no remaining borrowing capacity

Aug. 1, 2012: USPS defaults on $5.5 billion future retiree health benefits prefunding payment

Aug. 9, 2012: YTD net loss $11.6 billion, compared to $5.7 billion SPLY

USPS is doing everything possible to generate revenue and reduce costs in order to maintain universal service

Financial Climate of Postal Service

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Title 39 CFR 241.4

Community Relations Regulations

Customer Service Facilities

Expansion, Relocation, and Construction of

Post Offices

Relocation

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Optimize Network

Realign Workforce

Reduce Energy

Reduce Physical Footprint

Drives Out

Cost

Core Strategies

Leaner, Faster, and Smarter Organization

Current Square Footage

Berkeley Main Post Office 57,200 sf

Berkeley NPU 3,644 sf

Berkeley DDU 23,040 sf

Total 83,884 sf

Required Square Footage

Berkeley Delivery Ops 16,830 sf

Berkeley Retail Only 4,110 sf

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Node Action: Option A

Existing

Proposed

PA-11-078 Berkeley CA

Berkeley

NPU 3,644 sf

Relocate Delivery Operations to Carrier Annex &

Relocate Retail to Smaller Post Office Space

Berkeley

MPO 57,200 sf

Berkeley

DDU 23,040 sf

Terminate

Lease

Sell

Retain

Berkeley

DDU

Establish New Alternate Quarters

Berkeley Retail ~4,000 SF

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10-Year

Savings:

$5,054,460

Relocate Delivery Operations to Carrier Annex &

Relocate Retail to Smaller Post Office Space

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Berkeley Retail Locations

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Appraisal

Survey

Phase 1

Internal Documents

Historical Consultant

• Findings compiled and sent to SHPO for

covenants

Asset Manager for USPS

David Rouse (201) 714-7420

david.p.rouse@usps.gov

Due Diligence Period 90 Days

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Assign Local Broker (CBRE)

Advertise Property Sale

Determine Qualifications

Best and Final

CONTINGENT ON

ACCEPTABLE BUYER and

ACCEPTABLE REPLACEMENT SPACE

www.uspspropertiesforsale.com

Next Steps

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Marketing Advertisement

Sample Advertising for Historical Building

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Other Cities

San Rafael Sausalito

Half Moon Bay Palo Alto

Menlo Park Burlingame

Los Angeles La Jolla

Santa Monica Anaheim

Beverly Hills Santa Barbara

Completed

Venice Main Post Office

Soquel Main Post Office

Ukiah Main Post Office

Healdsburg Main Post Office

San Francisco Bryant Station

San Jose Station D

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Grass Valley, California

Law Offices and Financial Services

(Photo credits: JEF)

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Meriden, Connecticut

Engineering and Architectural Firm

(Photo credits: DeCarlo & Doll Inc.)

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Winnsboro, Louisiana

Museum and Community Facility

(Photo credit: Flickr/courthouselover)

(Photo credits: oldpostofficemuseum.com)

BEFORE AFTER

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El Dorado, Arkansas

Court House, Offices, and Café

(Photo credit: Flickr/courthouselover)

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Pasadena, Texas

Museum

(Photo credit: Flickr/mrchriscornwell)

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Franklin, Louisiana

Bed and Breakfast Hotel

(Photo credit: Flickr/courthouselover)

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Community Input Public Meeting

Comment Period

Considerations in Decision Making Process

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Common Concerns

Historical Significance

Post Office Boxes

BMEU

Mail Delivery

Parking

Community Input – Letters

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Next Steps

Postal Service makes a recommendation.

Forwards recommendation to USPS HQ along

with cost analysis and community input.

HQ either concurs with recommendation or makes

a recommendation of its own.

Postal Service notifies the community of the decision.

The community is given opportunity to appeal.

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Continue to send comments through September 28, 2012 to:

Diana Alvarado

USPS Pacific Facilities Service Office

1300 Evans Ave Suite 200

San Francisco CA 94188-8200

Berkeley Public Meeting

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Comments? As a courtesy, please limit your

comments to 3 minutes.

Berkeley Public Meeting

Berkeley P.O. Public Hearing – Sept. 13, 2012

Testimony by Harvey Smith, President

National New Deal Preservation Association

What I’d like to sketch for you today are the two competing narratives of what’s

happening with the USPS.

The view we get from the USPS is that because of the drop in mail volume due to email,

the postal service is facing insolvency. To meet its budget the post office must sell its

properties, both historic and otherwise, in order to maintain service.

The USPS says it will listen to the public in hearings. (I should say poorly noticed public

hearings as evidenced by the notice for today’s meeting.) However, the national pattern

of closures shows a disregard for public input. The USPS has also structured its rules for

closures by saying that if it “relocates” its operations that closure is not really a “closure”

which gives it the ability to make this decision more freely.

Furthermore, the USPS has hired a private real estate firm to advise which facilities to

sell. Not surprisingly, many sites up for sale are located in areas of high end real estate

that will turn a very handsome profit for this firm.

This narrative is supported by such conservative think tanks such as the American

Enterprise Institute and others who have promoted privatization of our military, prisons

education system and in essence the entire public sector.

Now, there is a counter-narrative to this story which can be learned by looking at a

number of easily accessible sources. First, the USPS is an institution that has survived

the advent of both the telegraph and telephone. With some restructuring it can certainly

survive email. Second, the primary reason it is not meeting its budget is the onerous

burden placed on it by Congress in 2006 to prepay its health benefits 75 years in advance

over a ten-year period. Third, it has also overpaid its pension fund so a refund could add

additional monies to its budget. These are not problems generated by postal operations,

but by conditions created in a Congress intent on privatizing the USPS.

So, this begs a few questions. Is USPS management on the side of those that would

privatize the postal service and actually welcomes the sell-off of its property? Does the

USPS just think the public is stupid and can not distinguish between these two narratives?

These buildings are legacies paid for by our parents, grandparents and great-

grandparents. They were built to beautify cities and towns and to provide a place to do

postal business that was worthy of a great democracy. Many were built and embellished

with public art during the New Deal. Their unnecessary liquidation is essentially a theft

of our heritage which will directly benefit a private firm. Relocation will make services

less accessible to ordinary citizens, businesses, the elderly and disabled. And, how do

you explain leasing in an expensive downtown location when you now own a building

free and clear?

This all makes one wonder if the USPS is an agent of some foreign government intent on

destroying our national heritage. Its conduct is tantamount to being an accomplice in the

theft of public property. It may not be today or tomorrow, but there will be a legal

reckoning in a court some day on this matter. Those of you that are telling the distorted

story of what’s happening to the USPS will undoubtedly say, “I was just following

orders.” I suggest why not take the high road now, the road of being a protector of an

American institution authorized in the Constitution?

The USPS is arguably one of the world’s largest communications operations. It could get

the whole story to its customers, the American public. We know it has this ability

because it distributed flyers to all its rental boxes in downtown Berkeley. However, these

flyers contained misinformation about this meeting today. Is this a pattern? Was this

deliberate?

So, I’ll conclude by asking, why can’t USPS management use its capability to tell all the

facts and join with its customers and its workers to tell Congress that we want our

beautiful and historic Post Offices to remain just where they are? We want the

privatization of this public service to cease. We want the USPS to become a 21st century

organization that continues to provide universal and convenient access to its customers.

Contact: harveysmithberkeley@yahoo.com

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REMARKS TO THE BERKELEY CITY COUNCIL/SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE POST OFFICE. September 12, 2012 Thank you for forming this subcommittee on saving our post office. It’s wonderful to be working together and we appreciate your involvement and action on this. I am working on this issue because the postal service is one of the civic services that make our lives easier, like having potable running water and a functioning sewage system. These services are a normal part of our lives until we begin to lose them as we are now experiencing. I would like to think that together we can stop the hemorrhaging of our basic services. We have to stop these losses before we lose more. Our national post office is one of these treasures. Others will speak to the services it provides and the visual and structural importance of so many post offices that are a part of the aesthetic life of our city and cities across this country. My comments will be on the Post Office as a major employer of African Americans since the Civil War and one of the most important government agencies to hire African Americans and provide consistent paths to the middle class. The civil rights movement certainly taught me, us how important the post office was as a major employer of African Americans at a time when it was almost impossible to get any other than menial or agricultural work. Of all government agencies, the post office was exemplary in its hiring practices. I want to note that although African Americans were hired as early as 1802, advancement was almost nil except during Reconstruction and picked up again in the 1960’s. My information is mostly from the Historian of the United States Postal Service, in a paper called “African American Postal Workers in the 20th Century”, February 2012. And part of their resources was recorded by the Federal Writers Project of the New Deal in 1939.

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As part of the Great Migration, post offices in Chicago, Baltimore and Philadelphia were great employers. In Chicago, 70% were laborers, 28% clerks, 16% letter carriers and 5% foremen. In 1940, FDR’s Executive Order 8587 – eliminated photos for civil service applicants and created the Fair Employment Practices Committee. In 1958: Herbert Hill, labor secretary, NAACP praised the P.O. as the only federal agency in the South that employed African-Americans above the level of janitors and other menial classifications. 1960, Urban League’s Frayser Lane, “Because of the pay and security, the P.O. is the basic foundation for the Negro community, P.O. workers have bought more homes and sent more offspring to college than any other segment of the group.” More from other documents…. The Post Office’s employment policy of the past is one reason why the right wing wants to destroy it. Their attack of course is wide and deep; working to shift more and more of our resources to the 1%, feeding privateers with government contracts while reducing our wages and services like schools and parks. Our Number One national concern is jobs. Why are we eliminating them when we know that salaries are vital parts of an economy. We need to work so others may have work. By saving our postal service we save part of our civil geographical center, we save vital communication links and we contribute to the well-functioning of a complex economy. We want to work with you to reach out to officials at every level of government to beat back these attacks against this important part of our lives. Note: Bulk of information is from African-American Postal Workers in the 20th Century; HISTORIAN, U.S.P.S. February 2012/