Bronx Consolidation Plan – Finally – ‘Not Approved’

Nearly three years after an Area Mail Processing study was launched, a plan to send mail from three major processing facilities in the Bronx to a sorting facility in Manhattan has been shelved. [USPS notice to APWU]

“The proposal to transfer the secondary processing activities from the Bronx [facilities] to the Morgan P&DC was not approved,” the Postal Service said in a news release Nov. 21. 

The Bronx AMP study, announced Dec. 15, 2005, proposed transferring “secondary processing activities from the Bronx P&DC” and two other facilities in the borough to the facility located in midtown Manhattan.

The study was immediately challenged by Bronx community groups, who took part in several boisterous rallies organized by the APWU New York Metro Area Local (NYMAL). In March 2007, Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY) and local activists declared temporary victory after being told by Postmaster General John E. Potter that plans to close the postal facilities had been put on hold until after “a thorough review” by the Office of Inspector General.

According to NYMAL President Clarice Torrence, the Bronx study had been in limbo since that time. Rep. Serrano pushed through a rider in the House version of the federal appropriations bill late last year, which prevented the Postal Service from consolidating the Bronx facilities and others until reviews had been performed by the General Accounting Office. On Nov. 3, the Postal Service announced that two other consolidation plans listed in the spending bill — from Sioux City, IA, to Sioux Falls, SD, and from Aberdeen, SD, to Huron, SD — had been scrapped.

Also on Nov. 21, the Postal Service announced that an AMP study had been approved. All mail processing currently taking place in a leased facility in Kansas City, KS, will be transferred to the Kansas City, MO, P&DC. The two facilities are approximately 10 miles apart.

The Kansas City AMP was announced Nov. 15, 2005. The Postal Service said that the Kansas facility will shut down once the transfer of mail processing operations is complete.

On Nov. 17, the USPS notified the APWU of plans to conduct an Area Mail Processing study to consider the consolidation of some operations at the Lakeland and Manasota FL Processing & Distribution Centers into the Tampa P&DC.