Post office tries to speed sorting

The U.S. Postal Service is pushing to bring better, more responsive service to Southeast Missouri, the new Cape Girardeau postmaster said Friday.

In a brief ceremony at the Richard G. Wilson Processing and Distribution Facility on Kell Farm Drive, Robert Fleming took the oath of office as Cape Girardeau's 31st postmaster. He's been in town since late April, he said, and he's already taken criticism to heart.

"One of the things I heard from people was how slow it was to get the mail through," Fleming said.

To speed things up, postal employees have been pushing to get the mail sorted earlier each evening, he said. The key benchmark is how much is ready by 8 p.m., and Wilbur Thornton, manager of post office operations, said crews have started finishing 80 percent by that time.

The result, Fleming said, is that carriers can begin their routes at 6:30 a.m., rather than 8 a.m. or later. "We have better control over our own destiny," he said.

One of the challenges facing the post office, he said, is that the new postal rates have cut into volume for the first time. New rules about the costs of various sizes of envelopes and other mailed items such as magazines are sending mailers scrambling for different ways to deliver their goods or to change the way they mail, Fleming said.

"We are worried we are not going to get those accounts back," Fleming said.

The short-lived effort to move mailboxes to the curbs inside Cape Girardeau won't be revived, Fleming said.

Fleming moved to Cape Girardeau from St. Petersburg, Fla., where he was the acting manager for customer service. He began his career with the post office in 1982 as a letter carrier in Colorado. Fleming replaces Michael Keefe, who had the job for almost 21 years, making him the second-longest tenured postmaster in Cape Girardeau history.

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126