WORK SESSION OF THE GREENBELT CITY COUNCIL held Wednesday, March 15, 2006, for the purpose of meeting with representatives of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and Roosevelt Center merchants to discuss continuation of retail postal service in Center City.

Mayor Davis called the meeting to order at 8:05 p.m. It was held in the Multipurpose Room of the Community Center.  

PRESENT WERE: Councilmembers Konrad Herling, Leta M. Mach, Edward V. J. Putens, Rodney M. Roberts, and Mayor Judith F. Davis.  

STAFF PRESENT WERE: Michael P. McLaughlin, City Manager; David E. Moran, Assistant City Manager; and Kathleen Gallagher, City Clerk.  

ALSO PRESENT WERE: Tim Haney, District Manager-Capital District, Mitch King, Manager-Government Relations, and Mike Cook, Marketing Manager, USPS; Terrance Taylor, Congressman Hoyer’s Office; Virginia Beauchamp, Greenbelt News Review; Dorrie Bates, Greenbelt Coop; Cindy Comproni, Greenbelt Federal Credit Union; Gwen Vaccaro, Pleasant Touch; Gretchen Jacobs, Greenbelt Arts Center; Bill Wilkerson, New Deal Café; Sylvia Lewis and others, Greenbelt Homes, Inc.; Carol and John Mealey, Suzette Agans, Janice Wolf, Christopher Shuman, Francis DeBernardo, Don and Helen Comis, Lenore Algaze, Matt Chandler, Lynne Tucker, Doug Love, Susan Keifline, Jeannette and Laura Holman, Germaine Timmermans; Barbara Dickey Davis, Tom White, Andy Carruthers, Kris White, Clement Lau, Chris Husker, Kelly Ivy, Marc Siegel, Bill Orleans, and others.  

Following introductions, Mayor Davis thanked Mr. Haney, Mr. King, Mr. Cook, and Mr. Taylor for coming and stated emphatically that the City believed that the matter of maintaining some level of retail postal service in Center City had to be worked out, one way or another.  

At the Mayor’s request, Mr. Haney gave an update on the status of the new post office building in Greenbelt East, saying it was about 90% ready, and he expected it to open in four-to-six weeks. The main thing lacking was utilities. There was discussion of the need to complete sidewalk access for pedestrians.  

Mayor Davis asked Mr. Haney to explain why the USPS had backed off of its prior commitment to maintain retail service at Roosevelt Center until a determination could be made of whether it would pay for itself. He said that a great deal had changed since this topic was first under discussion and that a commission had been established to do a thorough study of the efficiency of the USPS and make recommendations of ways to modernize doing business. He said they had invested a great deal of work in creating “opportunities” for customers to do their mailing by using their home computers rather than having to go to a brick and mortar post office.  

Mayor Davis said a couple of the merchants in Roosevelt Center had explored the option of establishing a Contract Postal Unit (CPU) but had determined that they could not even break even financially. She asked Ms. Bates to explain what conclusions the Coop had drawn. Ms. Bates said they had reworked the numbers over a period of a year-and-a-half and had determined they would not come close to covering their costs. The Mayor added that two issues for the Coop had been space (of which the Coop has little, as is true for most of the merchants in Roosevelt Center) and the stated requirement that the CPU would have to be open all the hours the store was open. Mr. Haney said that for most businesses, the CPU draws in customers so that keeping it open is viewed as a benefit, not a liability. He said a CPU opened recently at La Fonda Paisa Bakery in Silver Spring and another will open soon in College Park. He said “they’re taking off – they’re not a hard sell.” He said it was not necessary to have a staff person devoted to the CPU full time if there was someone who could move into the CPU when service was needed there.  

Ms. Bates said they had not recalculated any of their original figures because they had received no new figures or hard information from the USPS. Mr. Haney said they were committed to continuing to work with people to find a way to make it work.  

Mr. King said one issue was that the criterion for success was not necessarily making money on the unit itself, since for many businesses the CPU was successful in increasing the customer base and thus improved overall sales—like having a bank in a supermarket.  

Mr. Putens said he had considered the commitment made previously to keep the Center retail operation open at least long enough to determine its profitability to be a contract. He asked the minimum size for a CPU and was told 12’ X12’. He asked if they ever contracted for a CPU with a governmental body. Mr. King said they might have one in a federal building. Mr. Haney said there might be options outside of placing a CPU in a business location but that he did not want to discuss those while there was still potential for working with a merchant, which was by far the best solution in his opinion. He said he could discuss other options with the City Manager privately if a CPU did not work out.  

Mayor Davis asked what it would take for the USPS to keep the existing retail space open for limited hours with one employee. Mr. Haney replied that he would have to start over to get approval for that as a capital project. It would take a year to get through the review process, and he did not believe it would have any chance of approval. Mr. King added that there was a huge push for “efficiencies” being driven by the decline in use of first-class mail.  

Mr. Herling mentioned a suggestion Mr. Putens had made previously regarding having several merchants run a CPU jointly at the existing location. Ms. Mach asked if they would do a joint contract, and Mr. Haney said he was not sure, since it would be a competitive issue. It appeared it would be necessary to have one legal entity to assume responsibility.  

Mr. Haney mentioned the possibility of a mobile van but only as a short-term or interim possibility.

 Mayor Davis asked Bill Wilkerson if the New Deal Café had discussed this. He said they had not seriously discussed it because they had thought a larger space was required. He said he would raise it with the board but suspected that it might be more than they could handle right now.  

Mr. Roberts said the Roosevelt Center merchants had been “scared away” from doing this because they thought the USPS was too rigid and uncompromising in its requirements. He asked whether, regardless of whether that was true or not, they were willing now to be flexible enough to get this done. Mr. Haney said they were willing to keep trying to find a solution and would be happy to sit down and review the numbers with the Coop or any of the other merchants to try to see what the problems were.  

Referring to a suggestion made by Mr. Putens that the City might pick up the cost of the lease on the retail space, Mr. King said that simply removing the cost of the space would not be enough because the Postal Service would not staff any facility this close to the new facility.  

South Core Zip Code: The Mayor raised another issue, namely that the South Core property of the Greenbelt Metro Station, recently annexed by Greenbelt, is listed with a College Park zip code. Mr. Haney said requesting a zip code change had to be done in advance of any established addresses on the property. He suggested that the City approach Park & Planning about that right away.  

A number of issues were raised by audience members, including that making postal products available on the Web as a replacement for local retail would serve only part of the population. Sylvia Lewis questioned whether having one staff member working at Roosevelt would have to be considered additional staff, since that individual would not be needed at the Ora Glen station. Mr. Haney said it would not work that way, since even if the individual were part-time, the hours would have to be covered at times by someone else. He said he had to work within certain guidelines and follow a specific process. He said that requesting USPS cooperation in running a retail center at Roosevelt Center now would require returning to the same committee that originally said “no” to keeping it open. He said he truly did try to push it before but he did not see any possibility of reversing the decision.  

Marc Siegel commented that the old space was so “below code” that it would take a great deal of work to make it viable for continued use.  

Mr. Herling said access to the Greenbelt East location for residents of Center City and Greenbelt West again highlighted the need for better public transportation within the City. There was discussion of use of the Greenbelt Connection for this purpose.  

Chris Shuman and Bill Orleans both encouraged Council to incorporate retail postal service into the budget, since it is an essential service at the Center.  

Mayor Davis thanked Mr. Taylor and the USPS representatives for coming.  

The meeting was adjourned at 10:20 p.m.  

Respectfully submitted,
Kathleen Gallagher

City Clerk

City of Greenbelt, Maryland
City Offices, 25 Crescent Road, Greenbelt, MD 20770
Phone: 301-474-8000 FAX: 301-441-8248