Boxer Asks Postmaster General to Reconsider Freeze on Construction

By STEPHANIE STASSEL

April 10, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Citing a burgeoning California population that needs quality postal services, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is urging the postmaster general to reconsider the agency’s decision to freeze plans to build or expand 47 post offices statewide.

The California projects that would not be funded--estimated at $133 million statewide--include 14 in Los Angeles and Orange counties, from larger post offices to new mail-sorting facilities. The Postal Service, facing a deficit that could reach $3 billion this fiscal year, has frozen new construction and leasing, affecting more than 800 projects nationwide.

“[California’s 3 million] population increase underscores our need to expand--not halt--the construction of postal facilities,” Boxer wrote in an April 6 letter to Postmaster General William J. Henderson. “Post office business directly depends on the size of the surrounding population, and California’s population is growing at a rapid rate.”

A spokesman at the postmaster general’s office in Washington, D.C., said the agency’s hands were tied. “We’re getting a lot of requests [to rescind the freeze],” said Azeezaly Jaffer. “. . . Because of our current situation, we’re not able to do anything about it.”

Last week, the agency’s board of governors ordered a 90-day study of cost-cutting measures that could include ending Saturday mail delivery and closing some of the 38,000 post offices throughout the country. Although Congress would have to approve any delivery cuts or closures, the Postal Service operates independently of the federal government in raising and spending money.

Despite the agency’s level of autonomy, a spokesman for Boxer said she felt she needed to voice her objection to the construction freeze.

“Putting pressure on them, or the watchdog effect of ‘Let’s take notice, we’re not going to sit back and watch this go by,’ is the approach we’re taking,” said Jeff Logan, Boxer’s California spokesman. “Someone needs to speak out.”

The freeze is a blow to the proposed Lancaster Antelope Valley Delivery and Distribution Center at the corner of Sierra Highway and Avenue L, which Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) has supported since he was elected in 1992. Despite the announced freeze, McKeon’s staff met with post office management to urge them to build the new center.

“Lancaster was at the top of [McKeon’s] Postal Service construction list. He’s very disappointed that it’s been halted,” said David Foy, spokesman for McKeon.

Even before the freeze, no money had been set aside for the Lancaster project. Postal officials had been planning merely to do a feasibility study on the proposed delivery and distribution center, which if built would take over distribution duties currently handled in Mojave. The Mojave distribution center would continue to operate as a regular post office.

Approximately 70% of mail handled in Mojave comes out of Lancaster and Palmdale.

“It makes sense to have [the center] closer to where the mail is coming from and going to,” said Terri Bouffiou, a Postal Service spokeswoman in Los Angeles. “Had this financial crisis not occurred, we’d be doing the study and putting together a proposal.”

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New Postal Service projects that have been frozen (all are proposed new post offices unless otherwise noted):

DELAYED PROJECTS

* Anaheim Sunkist Post Office*

* Fullerton Main Post Office**

* North Downey Post Office

* Huntington Beach Surf City Carrier Annex

* Irvine Northwood Post Office

* Irvine Spectrum Post Office

* La Puente Rowland Heights Post Office

* Lancaster Antelope Valley Delivery and Distribution Center

* Los Angeles Farmers Market Post Office