The Wall Street Journal edition of May 10th describes some of the backlash agains the USPS move to close 3,700 rural post offices and 223 mail-sorting plants (like the one on Rollins Rd).  The report states that "the United States Postal Service on Wednesday backed away from its plan to close as many as 3,700 rural post offices starting next week".  Unfortunately our downtown post office is NOT in that category and, in fact, the City has received word from David Rouse, the realty asset manager, that our PO "will be actively marketed within the next 30-45 days".  Apparently the thirty day window for additional comment after the April 16th Public Meeting has been tossed in the dead letter file as this notice was dated May 2nd.

The Journal goes on to note

The (U.S.) Senate two weeks ago approved a bill that would trigger early retirement for as many as 100,000 postal workers, put off closing post offices and distribution centers for two years, and continue Saturday mail delivery.  Another bill is pending in the House.

That tells me, it's time to slow down on the sale of the Primrose Post Office as well.  Support for that idea comes also from a Letter to the Editor in the same edition of the WSJ.  A Paul Dickson from South Carolina writes about an earlier article

The Journal ignores the most important reason for the Postal Service's financial troubles: a $5.5 billion annual mandate to prefund 75 years of future retirees health benefits in just 10 years.  This onerous requirement, unmatched by any entity in the private sector or government, is responsible for more than 80% of the Postal Service's debt.  But for this pre-funding mandate, the Postal Service would have posted a profit of $700 million from 2007-2010 and a $200 million profit in the first quarter of this fiscal year.

No one is more interested in getting government and pseudo government agencies' pension and health costs back under control than I am.  You can read about this here, here and here.  But if Mr. Aiken's numbers are correct, this may be too fast and certainly jeopardizes downtown B'game for very poor reasons.