Is the removal of blue collection boxes another Trump Scandal, or is it business as usual for the United States Postal Service?
Before we dive into that, why should there be any business for the United States Postal Service? It’s a service, not a business. Right?
Well…
When the USPS was known as the Post Office Department it was a service. Then in March of 1970 Postal workers went on strike. In the aftermath of that Congress took action by way of the Postal Reorganization Act, signed into law by President Richard Nixon on August 12, 1970. The act replaced the cabinet-level Post Office Department with a new federal agency, the United States Postal Service, and took effect on July 1, 1971.
The act mandated that the new agency support itself through its own revenues, rather than relying on federal appropriations.
To recap, when the USPS was called the Post office Department, it was a service, but now that’s called the United States Postal Service, Congress expects it to support itself as a business.
That whole thing seems a little on the sketchy side, and we may revisit that, later, for now, Blue Collection Boxes.
Collection boxes were first introduced in 1858. Originally the boxes served as storage facilities for carriers who made their rounds on foot, storing rain gear and coats, gloves and mail bags. Time moved on and for the past hundred plus years the gear was moved to Postal vehicles and the mailboxes only store mail.
In 1984 I was driving a 1969, forest green, Pontiac LeMans, and there were
over 400,000 Blue collection boxes across the United States of America.
Between January and August over 24,000 Blue Collection boxes were removed. You may be reading this, thinking, yes, I know, it’s been all over the news.
The thing is, this did not happen this year. Those Blue Collection Boxes were removed during President Obama’s first year in office, 2009. Don’t worry, I’m not here to beat up on President Obama, nor am I here to beat up on President George W Bush, who also happened to be in office while the USPS was removing Blue Collection Boxes just as fast as they possibly could.
Nor am I here to beat up on the media for not reporting that fact. They did report the news. Unfortunately, the majority of people did not seem to care, at least as long as it wasn’t their Blue Collection Box, on their street, in their city.
According to Pew Research, in 2002, in order to save fuel and labor costs, the Postal Service began an aggressive program to cull what it considered underused boxes. Over the next few years, the number of collection boxes decreased dramatically. A 2009 news report observed that the Postal Service had been removing the boxes nationally at the rate of more than 60 per day.
Do they just pull them randomly or is there a system?
According to the Postal Operations Manual, the current policy is that if a mailbox isn’t seeing an average of 25 pieces per day, the Postal Service may remove it. The Postal Service is required to post a 30-day notice on the box before it’s removed, and customers are invited to comment.
In 2016 I was driving a 1995, white Ford Windstar, and there were
153,000 Blue collection boxes across the United States of America.
247,000 USPS Blue Collection Boxes were removed during the terms of our last two presidents, and except for a few local and state dust ups, there was hardly any hubbub, and no outrage.
Another thing missing, neither President Bush or President Obama’s name(s) were attached to any of the stories, at least not any I’ve found in my research.
The story was that USPS was removing boxes because they were underused and USPS was trying to save money, it did not matter who the president was.
I contacted USPS headquarters at 475 L’Enfant Plaza SW Washington, D.C. 20260-0004 to find out how many have been removed since President Trump has been in office. I was told, “approximately 11,000.” This year, I asked?
Total, they answered.
Today I drive a 1990, blue Ford F-150 and we have 142,000 Blue collection boxes across the United States.
This was unexpected. I started researching this piece fully expecting to find unfavorable facts about our current president and his administration, with regard to USPS Blue Collection Boxes being removed.
What I discovered is that USPS has been pulling collection boxes since 2002, and that our current president has seen far fewer boxes removed during his 3.5 years in office than either of our previous presidents saw during any one year in office, since USPS began removing them.
Why the big stink now?
Do we hold the president more accountable now, than then?
Is President Trump just hated that much?
Maybe because it’s an election year?
We had elections in 2004, 2008, and 2016 and USPS Collection Boxes were being removed at more than five times the rate they are now.
Maybe because we have a global pandemic going on and some want to vote by mail. or at least half the country thinks we have a global pandemic going on, and wants to vote by mail.
Interesting point about how divided we are now and absentee voting.
Absentee voting was born on the battlefields of the Civil War, according to National Geographic, with thousands of deployed soldiers sending their completed ballots in the mail back to their home states.
USPS has stated that they will stop pulling boxes until after the election, and that “we still have carriers come to every single home six days a week and they collect any outgoing mail that is available.”
Below are excerpts from the news stories about Blue box removal, pre-Trump.
“Across the country, stalwart blue “collection boxes” like the one on Flack Street in Wheaton are disappearing.”
~Washington Post, Cash-strapped Post Office pulling collection boxes
Mon., July 27, 2009
“The U.S. Postal Service says it removes “underperforming” mailboxes – those that collect fewer than 25 pieces of mail a day – after a weeklong “density test.” Snail mail is a dying enterprise because Americans increasingly pay bills online, send e-vites for parties and text or give a quick call on a cell phone rather than write a letter.”
~Washington Post, Cash-strapped Post Office pulling collection boxes
Mon., July 27, 2009
Yet the Postal Service has been going in the opposite direction, apparently ignoring the desires of its customers. For example, while the Postal Service increased the number of collection boxes in the 1990s, it began eliminating them in the following decade. It eliminated 24,000 such “blue boxes” in 2009 alone. Individual customers cannot help but notice these changes and see that the Postal Service is making it more difficult for them to use the postal system.”
~excerpts from DR. MICHAEL J. RILEY’s testimony before the PRC on behalf of the NALC. Dr. Riley was CFO of USPS from August 1993 to July 1998. POSTAL EMPLOYEE NETWORK POSTAL NEWS, Former USPS Chief Financial Officer Says Eliminating Saturday Delivery Is Not Necessary
August 2, 2010
“Could the familiar blue U.S. mailboxes soon go the way of pay phones? The squat metal collection boxes have been vanishing from some South Florida streets in recent weeks, victims of the nation’s changing communication habits and the worst financial crisis in the U.S. Postal Service’s 235-year history. About 415 underused boxes in Broward and Miami-Dade counties – about one in six of the total – are being unbolted, hauled away and sold for scrap metal. Palm Beach County is next, although how many will disappear there still has to be determined.
~Sun Sentinel, Mailboxes disappearing from South Florida as Postal Service struggles with deficit, Febuary 27, 2010
“The Postal Service, Jones reported, keeps a close eye on how many times we drop letters into our neighborhood mailboxes. If fewer than 25 pieces of mail a day make their way into a mailbox over a six-to-eight week period, that mailbox is flagged for removal.In San Antonio, according to the San Antonio Express-News, the number of mailboxes has decreased by more than half in the last three years — from 1,221 boxes to 563 boxes.”
Farewell my mailbox By Bob Greene, CNN Contributor September 8, 2011 11:12 a.m. EDT
“The Postal Service said putting the boxes out to pasture saves money because it doesn’t have to paint or otherwise maintain them or pay somebody to pick up the mail in them.”
“Removal of underused blue collection boxes has become fairly routine, unfortunately, because it makes good sense,” said Tom Rizzo, a postal spokesman in Maine.
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Public mailboxes going the way of pay phones
July 18. 2009