Gary fights to keep postal jobs

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

GARY – The city again is fighting to keep the U.S. Postal Service within its confines.

The Common Council at its Tuesday night meeting unanimously voted on second reading to pass a resolution opposing the USPS from combining the Gary mail processing center with South Bend’s. If the two combine, Gary stands to lose 83 jobs at the center, behind the main branch located on 15th and Martin Luther King Dr.

A feasibility study is being conducted by the USPS, according to Councilwoman Carolyn Rogers, D-4th District, but she was concerned that if the council doesn’t register its opposition before the study is complete, it would have even less of a say in any decision even though, Kim Yates, with the Postal Service in Indianapolis, assured her no decision will be made until after the study is complete.

Rogers said she first learned about the possibility of the center closing through a letter from U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, who also opposes the action.

“(The Post Office) is losing money,” she said. “People are not mailing things as much, and they’re ordering through the Internet. Enough first-class mail is not getting processed, is what I was told.”

The resolution will be sent to the USPS Post Master General in Washington as well as postal authorities in Indianapolis, Rogers said.

The study is slated for completion in June, she said.

In other business, Council President Ronier Scott, D-6th District, thanked residents in his district for reporting illegal dumping in the alleys. The General Services Department has been further cleaning the alleys with payloaders.

“The residents are fed up and have been trying to locate the individuals who’re doing the illegal dumping; people have been looting other people’s garbage for cans. I encourage all citizens to report any illegal dumping in there area,” Scott said.