UNCLOAKING THE POSTAL SERVICE'S WARBIRD

The following is a perspective by postal commentator Gene Del Polito for the PostCom Bulletin. The views expressed are solely the author's, and the PostCom Bulletin invites from spokespersons of responsible opposing views.

In the earliest days of postal discussions on "network realignment," top postal brass used to say that they had a plan for proceeding with realignment in a manner that would keep the whole business out of public view, i.e., "under the radar screen" as they would say. Of course, if you follow postal news in the nation's press, you'd quickly note that postal network changes have been anything but "under the radar screen." In fact, nary a week goes by without seeing something somewhere in a newspaper or hearing something somewhere on radio or television that deals with the latest postal "evaluation" of some postal facility or another.

Under the radar screen? Gimme a break!

The Postal Service's stealth capabilities are about as useful as the Romulan warbird's cloaking device was in StarTrek. In case you've forgotten, let me tell you how it worked. The Romulans used a special technology called a "cloaking device" that would render its warships invisible to its enemies. It would go along all nice and stealthy until the time came to attack it's prey, Then, before it could fire its weapon, it had to uncloak itself, which would render it very, very visible to its enemy's weapons and defenses. Remember? That was how the Enterprise always kicked Romulan butt.

Well, if you had to judge solely by accounts in the press, the opponents of postal consolidations and network realignment have done a very good job of uncloaking the Postal Service's warbird. The Postal Service's sorry saga began with press reports of mail service snafus in Southern California. At first it denied the problems in Los Angeles had anything to do with facility consolidation. Eventually, it had to own up to the sorry fact that something went amiss in a local plant's consolidation plan, and that set off a chain of events that adversely affected local mail service.

Shortly thereafter, the Postal Service made the headlines again over an uproar from local postal workers, federal and local legislators, and the general public over a realignment plan for a facility in Iowa. Once again the Postal Service dropped the ball by not providing the senator who represented that state with a timely and complete report of its rationale and documentation that would warrant the facility's reorganization. The senator, quite understandably, fumed, and took steps to write provisions in new postal laws to restructure the rules under which postal plant consolidations could take place.

Then things went to hell in South Dakota, Minnesota, Illinois and then Indiana. On and on it went until the postal eagle, far from being all stealthy and cloaked, now looked as naked as a jaybird.

You'll have to trust me on this one, but I've been around in DC long enough to know that when things finally show up in the pages of the Washington Post, your under the radar screen days are over. In fact, that has already occurred in a recent Post piece entitled: "Postal Service Feels the Heat Over Consolidation Plans." The writer treated the topic lightly, but Congress is still in session, and that means that all 535 of those who serve on the Hill now know the Postal Service is a ripe for making hay with disgruntled postal patrons back home. One Member of Congress was able to nail his postal coonskin to his wall with a local newspaper editorial that read: "Manzullo returns postal plan to sender."

Theories abound as to what this all means for postal network realignment. One even holds that all this public ruckus is meant to distract the public and their officials from discerning the real consolidations and realignment that are still going on under the radar screen. (See, it isn't just the planets that spin.) It seems hard not to conclude, however, that the stealth jig is up, and that leaves you wondering if the Postal Service has a Plan B.