90-year-old postal worker still going strong on the job after 70 years
Ninety-year-old Leroy Brown has been employed with the United States Postal Service for 70 years and has no thoughts about retirement.
The United States Postal Service has announced an overhaul of its Fort Myers processing and distribution center, which will see all outgoing mail routed to Tampa rather than being handled locally.
The plan includes an investment of up to $26.3 million to modernize and maintain the Fort Myers plant, which will remain open to sort, process and deliver incoming mail, USPS said in a press release.
The changes are not expected to delay local deliveries and are intended to reduce costs and improve service across the region, the agency said.
“The investment in the Fort Myers facility is a part of the Postal Service’s 10-year Delivering for America plan to improve organizational and operational processes and actively make the Postal Service an efficient, high-performing, world class logistics and delivery provider,” USPS said in a statement.
The upgrades will include $9 million in new sorting machines and amenities for employees like new lighting and renovations for bathrooms and break rooms. The facility will also be equipped with charging stations for USPS’ new electric mail trucks.
Demise of the Fort Myers postmark?
But Sam Wood, president of the local American Postal Workers Union, is skeptical – both of the claimed service benefits and the new investment promised by USPS.
“They’re making it look all rosy and everything to the public,” Wood said in an interview. “The bottom line is for most postal employees and even supervisors, they all look at it and just laugh.”
The Fort Myers Processing and Distribution Center, located on Jetport Loop near Southwest Florida International Airport, currently handles outgoing mail for Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Hendry and Glade counties.
A USPS review projects that the change will save between $2.5 million and $3.3 million per year with no downgrades to service performance. The agency also said there would be no career layoffs, with dozens of jobs transferring from Fort Myers to Tampa.
But Wood questioned whether mail could be delayed due to traffic problems on I-75. Under the new system, a Fort Myers resident sending a letter across town would have their envelope shipped up to Tampa, processed there and driven back for delivery.
“How is it faster if you’re sending it two hours up the line to another facility?” he said.
Wood also said that some of the improvements promised in the press release have already been made, including bathroom renovations.
And more sentimentally, Wood warned that the change will effectively be the end of the Fort Myers postmark. While customers could still get the the mark at a local retail counter, any mail sent by dropboxes will be postmarked from Tampa.
“Southwest Florida loses its identity, as far as the postmark goes,” Wood said.
USPS did not specify when the changeover would take place.