Yes, the U.S. Postal Service is serious about unloading some of its excess real estate and now has the website to prove it. Launched two weeks ago, uspspropertiesforsale.com lists 90 commercial properties and some three dozen land parcels.
Better hurry: some of these babies are already in contract, the site indicates. Still available, however, are a 10,200 square-foot post office building in Fairfield, Ct. for $4.425 million, a historic 1904 structure in Yankton, S.D. for $395,000 and a 17-story Art Deco “special purpose” facility in St. Paul, Minn. (no price given). Not clear whether any of these would be considered fixer-uppers. The Postal Service’s agent is CB Richard Ellis.
The properties up for sale represent a tiny fraction of the Postal Service’s total holdings. But more could be coming on the market if the cash-hungry mail carrier succeeds in shuttering several thousand post offices and a couple of hundred mail processing plants. Sorry, but you’ll have to come up with financing on your own; all sales “require cash at closing,” the site says.
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Alright powers that be, here it is in a nutshell. You want us out, we want to go. The economy and failure of our TSPs to thrive is what’s stopping us. UNTIL NOW! The mere mention of a 25K buyout not only put my retirement plans on hold, but other carriers that I work with as well. That is a decent incentive for us older carriers who are eligible to retire. I’d take it and probably won’t have to get another round of Synvisc injections in my knees. Please don’t fiddle fart or nickle-dime around here. Offer the 25K in one payment the beginning of 2012 so it’s not on this years taxes. Pick an age you guys are willing to go down to, 55, 52… or if you’re eligible to retire or not, and see who bites. Yes, you’ll probably be getting rid of alot of craft employees, but they will be older carriers and clerks, at the top of the wage scale and vacation weeks. How then to deal with the shortage? SIMPLE! You get the 1 in the 1:7 ratio that Darryl Issa says exists in the postal service to go back to the carrier or clerk craft. WHY? Because these people making between 60K and 80K will never take a buyout. Look what happened last April, less than 2000 went for 20K! I truely believe you people are finally aware that these people do absolutely nothing everyday to earn that salary. In my office alone, we have bosses from other cities counting mail that has already been counted by the machines. These people are shuffled, reshuffled and sent all over the state. And for what? To make them look busy. And at what expense to the Postal Service, with the per diem, hotel costs, gas mileage, etc? If there is a word that describes beyond ludicrous, then we need it now to describe the 1:7 ratio that Mr. Issa is so livid about. So guys, act fast here and do it right. Let’s not make this another government SNAFU and be in the same predicament 6 months, 1 year, or 3 years from now!