• Dear Postmaster General Donahoe:
• I do hope this letter arrives at your office in reasonable time.
• Sarcasm aside, there was a time when I put a First Class stamp on a letter and mailed it, I had confidence, depending on its destination, it would get there overnight or within two or three days. There was a time when newspaper publishers could expect their latest edition would reach mail subscribers in a reasonable time frame as well.
• Today, that confidence doesn't exist.
• And your latest plan to close more than 80 mail processing plants around the country - including the Dakota Central facility in Huron - will erase any shreds of remaining confidence.
• You have a difficult job. Mail trends have not been kind to your business the past several years, thanks in large part to the internet and 9-11. First Class mail - still the biggest generator of revenue for you - has dropped more than 35 percent the last dozen years or so.
• So how do you clear a path for the survival of the Postal Service in the face of some mighty strong headwinds? Obviously, you need to reduce expenditures and tighten the belt to fit new realities.
• But I believe your latest plan goes too far. From the 30,000-foot view at USPS headquarters, your latest plant consolidation plan may look good on the spreadsheet. But looking at it from here on Main Street and the mailbox-dotted gravel roads of South Dakota, it's a clunker.
• The newspaper publishers of South Dakota who belong to the trade association I work for, know it's a clunker as well. They have been fighting desperately now for several years to find ways to get their newspapers  delivered to customers in a timely manner. Fighting desperately despite the roadblocks and hurdles put up by your organization.  
• Closing more mail processing plants will only contribute to the sclerosis of the mail network in this country. Your plan doesn't save the Postal Service; it just makes things worse.
• The degradation and decline don't happen all it once, but they happen.

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