By Steve Mosco
After months of uncertainty, the U.S. Postal Service has decided not to shut down the Queens Processing and Distribution Center in College Point in a move saving more than 700 jobs, U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Bayside) said Friday.
Postal officials recently placed the center on its list of endangered facilities, scheduled to close due to budget cuts. But a coalition of elected officials, customers, civic groups, the community board and unions united for a vigorous campaign to keep the center open and processing mail.
“The decision to take the processing and distribution center off the chopping block is great news for the residents of Queens and the many businesses that depend on the critical services provided by this facility,” said Ackerman after the announcement. “The plan to move the center’s responsibilities to the Brooklyn distribution location was a horrible idea that would have reduced the borough’s accessibility to a critical facility that hundreds of thousands of people rely upon. I thank postal officials for finally coming to their senses and for realizing how adversely impacted Queens would have been if this facility was closed.”
Ackerman wrote a letter to the Postal Service’s Triboro district manager, Frank Calabrese, in December, urging the agency not to eliminate mail operations at the College Point facility at 140-02 20th Ave. Besides the loss of jobs, the congressman said closing the facility and moving operations to Brooklyn would have dramatically slowed the delivery process for Queens residents.
“Businesses and organizations that send bulk mail would be particularly impacted as collection times would be earlier, while drop off times would be later,” Ackerman said in the letter. “Mail would also likely be sorted more slowly and large mailings would no longer have a reliable drop-off location in the same geographic area they are being sent.”
