Local Postal Pickup Times to Change

WAITSBURG - "Nei- ther snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." While the United States Postal Service creed inscribed on the James Farley Post Office in New York City still holds true, it's eastern Washington customers -- not postal workers -- that will need to be a bit more "swift" in getting their mail to the box, come Saturday. That's when mail previ- ously sorted in Pasco will be routed to Spokane for processing instead.

According to Postal Service Spokesman Ernie Swanson, 140 of the 461 U. S. mail processing facilities have been consolidated in order to "make more effi- cient use of space, staffing, equipment and transportation." Pasco's mail process- ing center was slated to be consolidated to Spokane on June 28, but received a short reprieve to provide time for final scheduling and trans- portation arrangements. With all the steps in place, that final consolidation will take place this week.

The Pasco Processing & Distribution Center sorts mail from all cities with zip codes starting in 993 and is the first of three centers to be consolidated to Spo- kane's processing center. The Yakima and Wenatchee sorting centers are slated to follow.

"Things won't change that much, locally, other than what time the mail will be picked up," said Waitsburg postmaster Dave Mueller. Mail that used to be picked up at 5:15 p.m. is now scheduled to be col- lected at 1:45 p.m. to allow time for the mail to reach Spokane for processing."

Dayton postal employee Terry Hessler echoed Muel- ler, saying that nothing aside from pick-up time will change at their office. Day- ton's new pick-up time will be 1 p.m. beginning Sat- urday. "If customers want their mail to go out that day, or to be postmarked with that date, they'll need to have their mail in the box by one o'clock," said Hessler.

When asked if more changes could be anticipated in the near future, Swanson responded, "We have no additional changes to our mail processing operations in the area planned at this time."