North Platte chamber president reacts to USPS retaining mail processing services

NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (KNOP) - Three days after the United States Postal Services announced mail distribution and processing services will stay in North Platte, a community leader is speaking out on the decision.

The postal service announced in May plans to hold off on changes to move processing and distribution operations out of North Platte to Denver until later this year.

North Platte Area Chamber and Development Corporation President and CEO Gary Person is praising the efforts from community members and leaders, postal workers and their union, including state elected officials for rallying together and “fighting the good fight.”

“Rural America is still relevant and this proves it,” said Person. “Especially with everything that North Platte has going on right now with all the additional commerce that’s coming in here, all the additional jobs, new business and new industry, it’s just that much more critically important that we have a viable working post office that delivers on what they they’re going to do.”

The plan also calls for $4.4 million in upgrades to the North Platte facility, which are still in motion.

“Hopefully now those improvements and refunding those positions to get them back in the active workforce is certainly very much hoped for,” Person said. “ But I also think they were almost trying to almost purposely tried to make the mail service less reliable by not filling those positions. So I am very pleased at the citizens that rallied around it.”

In a joint statement with U.S. Senators Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts, Congressman Adrian Smith issued the following about the proposed changes:

“Improvements to postal operations are needed to better serve Nebraskans. Any efforts toward modernization must not come at the expense of customer service but rather increase effectiveness. Because of this, I have urged president trump to maintain high standards for rural delivery as his administration works to address the significant challenges facing the postal service.”

The news also comes five days after Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced his resignation after five years on the job.