USPS changes lead to delays in paper delivery

By Kris O’Leary Owner/publisher Last Friday as a snowstorm hit the area, we started fielding phone calls from subscribers wondering where their papers were. As the number of calls increased, we realized there was a bigger problem with the mailing system that we were not prepared for, nor had been advised about in advance.

The local newspapers are printed at the Tristar Printing plant in Abbotsford. The Tribune-Phonograph, Record Review and Tribune Record Gleaner (TRG) are printed on Wednesdays, and The Star News is printed on Thursdays. The papers are addressed and taken to the post office in Abbotsford on Wednesday afternoon, and on Thursday morning for The Star News. The post office has mail trucks that drop off the mail in Abbotsford in the morning and pick up mail again in the evening. The papers that were delivered outside of Abbotsford were put on the truck to Green Bay, where they were in the past sorted and sent back to our local post offices the next day to be delivered on Thursdays or Fridays.

On Friday, we learned that the mail will only be picked up on Wednesday mornings by 9:30 a.m. Most of the papers are printed after that time and will only be picked up the next day and sent to Green Bay on Thursday, or Friday for The Star News papers not mailed out of the Medford post office. This means that our subscribers who usually get their papers in the mail on Thursday will not get their paper until Friday at the earliest. The Star News customers not in Medford will get their papers on Saturday at the earliest. This is only if the mail sorting in Green Bay gets all the papers sorted and back on the truck on those days. If they don’t have time, the papers get sent to Milwaukee or another processing plant to get sorted where they may get back to Green Bay in a day or two, before they are shipped back to our local post offices.

First class mail, newspapers and magazines are no longer the post office’s priority. Postage has increased twice a year for the past few years and USPS plans to continue this trend. As a small business owner, I am mad. I cannot guarantee my customers delivery of their newspaper by mail in a timely manner. We pay more each year to mail your papers for increased delivery times and less service. But do you know who can depend on good customer service from our rural post offices? The billionaire owner of Amazon made a sweetheart deal with the U.S. Postal Service years ago to have Amazon packages delivered by the post office in rural America because he realized it was a money losing deal to have Amazon drivers deliver it themselves to areas of the country where addresses can be miles apart.

The USPS looked at this deal with Amazon as a new revenue source. In reality, it has ruined rural mail delivery. In rural areas, we cannot get letters and newspapers delivered in a timely manner because they are put on the back burner for Amazon. The post office higher-ups in Washington have said it is OK to hold first class mail and periodicals to make sure boxes from Amazon, FedEx and

Please see Postal Service, page 3 Postal Service,

from p. 1 UPS are prioritized over even the post office’s own package mailing. Our local post offices are suffering the fallout. They are understaffed, have no space for all the Amazon packages, and their route carriers must go out and deliver heavy boxes to front doors and try and fit it all into personal vehicles to deliver.

The post office used to be a desirable job. Today they struggle to fill positions and pull people from different offices to try and cover mail routes. They have to deliver packages seven days a week. Your local postal workers feel bad you can’t get your paper sooner. We are all mad that you can’t get your paper on time. It is time for all of us in rural areas to let our U.S. Congress members – Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Sen. Ron Johnson and Rep. Tom Tiffany – and our State Legislature members – Sen. Jesse James, Rep. Donna Rozar and Rep. Karen Hurd – know we won’t stand for subpar postal service.

We are working as your newspaper to come up with some other solutions to get your local news to you. We have the online e-edition that is out as soon as the paper goes to press. We have subscription office pick-ups at our newspaper locations in Abbotsford, Loyal, Medford and Cornell. We are also working on some other alternatives, so please bear with us as we move forward to find a better solution to the current delivery issues.