USPS reserves Conway P.O. decision

Published 11:07 am Monday, November 21, 2011

CONWAY — The two Conway Post Office rural carriers that were reassigned to Murfreesboro are coming back home.

On Friday, United States Postal Service (USPS) spokeswoman Monica Robbs confirmed the two Conway rural routes that were moved to the Murfreesboro Post Office will be returning to Conway.

“They (the carriers) are going back home,” she said.

The operational changes came after a public meeting held in May. During that meeting, Julius Jones, post office operations manager for the area, explained the USPS mail truck that made its regular morning stops at the Conway Post Office would stop doing so in an effort to save approximately $7,000-$8,000 a year.

Instead the town’s mail would be delivered to Murfreesboro and the mail would be delivered to the post office by way of contractor or carrier.

While the changes were “transparent” to customers, they did impact Conway’s rural carriers who had to report to the Murfreesboro Post Office after the changes were in effect.

Robbs said on Friday the truck will begin to make its stops in Conway again “very soon” and the operational changes would return to the way they were before.

“The savings were not there like we thought they would be,” she said.

Robbs said those initial operational changes were directly attributed to the financial crunch currently felt by the USPS. The organization is reportedly bleeding billions of dollars due to loss of business to email, texting and other forms of technology.

“There’s a lot of legislation pending in Congress right now that could help with that situation, but we cannot wait to make decisions,” she said.

Robbs said the USPS is working to make those changes in order to save the organization and also to make those changes “transparent” to its customers so not to interrupt service.

Meanwhile, the fates of other area post offices are still hanging in the balance.

Robbs said studies are still pending on post offices in Pendleton and Severn.

“Let me stress that we still do not have a decision on (those offices),” she said. “We’ll know more after the first of the year.”

She added if either one or both of the offices were closed their post offices boxes would consolidate into Conway.