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Talk of the Bay

Last chance to save St. Pete postmark

By KRIS HUNDLEY
Published June 12, 2006

Fans of the St. Petersburg postmark - and you know who you are - should make plans to attend a town hall meeting at the St. Petersburg Main Library at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

A plan is being considered to remove the postal cancellation machine out of the main U.S. Post Office in St. Petersburg and route all mail for cancellation to Tampa. That means if you mail a letter in St. Petersburg to your friend down the block, it will get to take a roundtrip to Tampa in a semitrailer truck before it is finally delivered.

Postal officials say customers could request a St. Petersburg postmark on special items, like wedding invitations. Meanwhile, they estimate the consolidation would save $1.3-million a year.

But Mike Sullivan, president of Suncoast Area Local 1228 of the American Postal Workers Union, isn't buying it. "The Post Office is going to tell you this is all cost-effective and will save money,'' he said. "But I've worked for the post office for 22 years, and every time they tell you they're going to save money, they're going to cut jobs.''

Sullivan acknowledged that workers' jobs will be protected in this case, even if the cancellation machine is moved to Tampa. "But workers will be displaced and disrupted,'' he said. "They'll have to go to Tampa to work.''

[Last modified June 12, 2006, 06:28:33]