Fwd: {{ruralcarriers@rootsweb.com}} NJ Postal and Rural News, Issue 34, V. 1, Dec. 13, 2007 (List 5)

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From: <hier...@comcast.net>
Date: Thu, Dec 13, 2007 at 3:15 AM
Subject: {{ruralc...@rootsweb.com}} NJ Postal and Rural News, Issue 34, V. 1, Dec. 13, 2007 (List 5)
To: Hier...@comcast.net
Cc: Ruralc...@rootsweb.com


NEW JERSEY POSTAL AND RURAL NEWS
Issue 34, Vol. 1         December 13, 2007   Thursday        Hier...@comcast.net

Issues of the New Jersey Postal and NRLCA News are now posted and available on the following website: http://groups.google.com/group/rlc_onliners_pub?hl=en
DISCLAIMER: I have no affiliation with USPS or the NRLCA and as such any information that I pass on is unofficial and constitutes advice and/or suggestions for your consideration. You may be advised to double-check with official sources before depending on its use and while you are doing that ask why is it that someone without official contacts has this information and is passing it on and its not coming from official sources.
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Opened mail pops up along North Bend streets
North Bend, Oregon - It appears that mail thieves may be targeting an area in North Bend, and with the added incentives of kicker checks and holiday gift money, local law enforcement is advising residents to play it safe.

In the last 24 hours, the North Bend Police Department says they've received a number of reports of opened mail found along city streets and walkways, mainly in the area of Wall and Chester streets. Officer Jon Bohanan, who was patrolling the area Monday morning, says they've found at least a dozen pieces of opened mail. Although it doesn't appear that any checks were stolen, he advises everyone to still be cautious.

"We get complacent through the years and just leave our mail in the mailbox and not pick our mail up promptly, even leaving it over night," says Boha nan. "We encourage you to pick up the mail as soon as you know it's been delivered or if you aren't going to be home, make arrangements to have a friend that you trust pick it up for you."

Other tips, he says, to help reduce the risk of falling victim to mail theft includes dropping off your mail to the post office directly, or hand delivering it to your mail carrier when you see them. Right now, they have no suspects in these recent cases, but they ask anyone who sees anything suspicious to contact their local police department.
http://www.kcby.com/news/12324041.html
Ex-postal worker sentenced to jail for ID thefts at Berks post office
The former staffer at the Gus Yatron Mail Facility receives six to 23 months in Berks County Prison for stealing the identities of 19 passport applicants.

Reading, Berks County, PA -  A former postal worker was sentenced Monday to six to 23 months in Berks County Prison for stealing the identities of 19 people who had applied for passports. William E. Butler of Philadelphia pleaded guilty to identity theft, unlawful use of a computer and conspiracy for using names, addresses, birth dates and Social Security numbers from passport applicants to obtain credit/debit cards and medical benefits.

Berks Judge Linda K.M. Ludgate also ordered Butler to serve seven years of probation.
According to court records, Butler and Kim McKnight Jimenez, a former passport clerk at the Gus Yatron Mail Facility, 2100 N. 13th St., took the information from passport applicant s from October 2006 through March.

The scheme crumbled when a mail clerk noticed cards in other people’s names were being mailed to Jimenez’s and Butler’s post office boxes. Assistant District Attorney Jason C. Glessner asked for a prison sentence of 11½ to 23 months, citing the number of victims and their expectation that personal information given to a government agency would be protected from theft.

Butler apologized to the victims. His attorney, Nicole Taylor of Philadelphia, told Ludgate that Butler, who formerly served in the Army and the National Guard, wants to re-enlist.

Glessner said none of the identity thefts resulted in losses to the victims. At the time of the thefts, Butler lived with Jimenez, 48, of the 2600 block of Laurel Springs Lane, Exeter Township.

He worked with her at the mail facility until November 2006, when he moved to Philadelphia. Jimenez, a 27-year employee of the U.S. Postal Service, remains free on $90,000 bail while awa i ting court action. She was placed on emergency leave when charges were filed, but later resigned. http://www.readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=71819
Ode to junk mail
Chichester, New Hampshire- Well, I have just returned from a meeting of the town's dump budget committee, and I want to comment on the recent diatribe against junk mail on the front page of the Monitor's local section.
Our local dump has recycled $29,000 worth of "mixed paper" this year so far, and more than $100,000 from 1999-2006 - a great savings to the taxpayers. And, like ethanol, you have to look at the overall system to determine its true worth. The mailman's salary is determined by the amount of junk mail he handles (he gets paid by the "foot" of mail), the junk mail industry employs millions of people - artists, salesmen, printers, reporters, ad writers and so on. And as a recent newspaper article noted, some retired people and those homebound "wait for the big Friday delivery of junk mail and read every bit of it."
So, give junk mail its due - it represents many things to many people and is basically a positive industry. From PAUL ADAMS, Chichester. http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071209/OPINION/712090391/1029/OPINION03
Postal problems in northeast Houston
Houston, Texas- Neither rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night can keep the postal service workers from doing their jobs -- except, it seems, in one Houston neighborhood. For Jessie Phillips, the final straw came a week and a half ago when the mail carrier didn’t deliver any mail. That meant he didn't get his Social Security check.
“The thing is a lot of these people get their checks on the 1st and the 15th, and the last 1st came on a Saturday and people that were depending on getting their checks, they didn’t get it,” Phillips said. He says delivery is usually late.
“Sometimes the mailman comes early in the day or late in the evening,” he said. That’s what happened to Henry Dennis, who lives a few blocks over.
“I was sitting the house and it never did come, I got up that Sunday morning and looked out there and mail was in the box,” Dennis said.
A spokesman with the post office in that northeast Houston neighborhood admitted there have been problems in the ZIP code area. He said the problem stems from short staffing. Dave Lewin said four postal routes are vacant.
“We don’t have people to fill those particular routes. And until the new year, our folks are going to have double up and carry more than one route,” he said. But what about that day no mail came? The post office says that a truck broke down.
Phillips isn’t buying it. “Don’t use an excuse that the truck broke down.” He just wants his mail in his box on time. http://www.khou.com/news/local/stories/khou071210_jj_postalproblems.27ab4ac.html
Amid complaints, Bloomfield to expand postal service
BLOOMFIELD, NEW MEXICO — Daniel Roemer has two addresses listed on his business cards. One is his physical address in Bloomfield, where Roemer, the owner of Haulrite of Four Corners, has construction materials delivered. The other address is a private residence in Aztec, where he receives mail from the United States Postal Service.
Roemer opened his trailer manufacturing plant at 201 Missouri St. seven years ago, and he still doesn't have mail service.
"It's like we're at the end of the earth or on the moon," he said. "I'm tired of explaining to people that they can send steel and wood here, but not the mail."
Roemer said the lack of mail delivery is frustrating on the best days, but the address mix-up also takes a toll on production. Deliveries that go through the post office are marked "undeliverable" and returned to the sender, Roemer said. Others are rerouted to Bloomfield, Missouri. And once, a load of lumber delivered by forklift arrived at Roemer's secretary's house in Aztec.
"It looks stupid and unprofessional to say this address is good for everyone except the United States Postal Service, which won't deliver mail in the city," Roemer said. "It's a real pain to have to tell people to please pay attention to the delivery address and the billing address."
Roemer isn't the only business owner eager for mail service. His neighbor on Missouri Street, Rocky De Herrera has waited for six years to have mail delivered to his door — or at least to a neighborhood mail box at the end of the street. "It causes a problem for us," said De Herrera, owner of Bloomfield Construction Company. "Construction bids come into the organization from all over the country, and they go to the physical address. It gets all mixed up, and we never get the letters."
De Herrera rents a post office box for his business mail, which overflows if he doesn't empty it every day. The larger box he needs costs $500 per year. Bloomfield annexed the half-mile of land at the north end of town — including Missouri Street — in 2000, City Manager Keith Johnson said. Aztec and Bloomfield defined the boundary between the cities that year, following a disagreement about annexation laws.
The federal government operates the post office, Johnson said, and the city can't force it to deliver mail to Missouri Street, or to new businesses cropping up in north Bloomfield following the city's annexation of the Animas Industrial Park.
"We would like to see them get the service they deserve and need in that area," Johnson said. "There's no reason they can't have it."
Bloomfield Postmaster Helena Begay said residents and business owners in north Bloomfield qualify for free rental of a small post office box. Begay refused further comment on delivery services. "I would say we're keeping up with the (city's) growth," she said.
The United States Postal Service found the Bloomfield building and staff adequate for the city's needs, spokesman Sam Bolen said. The USPS plans to expand delivery service next year to about 250 addresses off U.S. 550. The USPS will install centralized box units in January and transfer post office box delivery to street addresses, Bolen said.
"We will advise all customers of the change via letter to their current PO box address sometime around the first half of next month," he said. http://www.daily-times.com/news/ci_7679932
Court Upholds Postal Supervisor’s Demotion For Altering TimeKeeping Records
The Appeals court has upheld the demotion of a Postal Customer Services Supervisor, EAS-17 for altering timekeeping records.
According to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals:
Prior to his demotion in October 2005, Richard Davis was Supervisor, Customer Services, EAS-17, responsible for supervising mail carriers at the Burlington Station in Knoxville, Tennessee. One of his tasks as a supervisor was to ensure that all mail carriers returned to the station by 5:00 p.m. each day. Under the agency’s timekeeping system, every mail carrier would “clock in” upon returning to the station, creating a daily “clock ring entry” indicating the exact time of his or her return.
A June 2005 review of timekeeping records revealed that  Davis was responsible for a high number of changes in his subordinates’ clock ring entries. In each instance, it was determined, Davis had changed the return time from after 5:00 p.m. to exactly 5:00 p.m. or some time before that, in order to comply with the agency’s target deadline. Davis made seventeen such clock ring alterations, substantially more than any other supervisor.
As a result of its investigation, the agency demoted Davis for unsatisfactory work performance for improperly altering his subordinates’ clock ring entries. Davis appealed his demotion to the Board. Following a hearing, the administrative judge to whom the appeal was assigned issued an initial decision in which he sustained the agency’s action.
Based upon the evidence presented to him, the AJ concluded that the agency had met its burden on all three criteria. First, the AJ found preponderant evidence of Mr. Davis’s unsatisfactory work performance due to his improper clock ring alterations. Davis testified that the clock ring alterations in question were in fact proper because he only made them when a mail carrier had actually returned before 5:00 p.m. but did not clock in until after that deadline. The AJ was not persuaded by this claim, which contradicted separate testimony by mail carrier witnesses who stated that “as a matter of course, they clocked in when they returned.”
Davis asserted disparate treatment. His claim is that, while several allegedly similarly situated supervisors also engaged in questionable clock ring adjustments, he was the only one demoted. We reject this argument. Davis was not similarly situated to the other supervisors since he had committed a substantially greater number of questionable clock ring adjustments. For example, it was determined that Davis made seventeen questionable changes, while the next highest total for any supervisor in the area was ten.
The court determined that “since Mr. Davis had abused his supervisory authority to manipulate important agency data the demotion” was justified.
Davis vs. USPS (PDF) [Editor’s Note: 10 changes in timekeeping records is OK?????]
http://www.postalreporter.com/news/2007/12/11/court-upholds-demotion-of-postal-supervisors/
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