Problems identified with first run of the new postal service regimen

NORTH CANAAN — The initiation of what the U. S. Postal Service calls the Delivery Unit Optimization (DUO) program got off to a less than auspicious start Saturday, May 7.The plan calls for mail to be delivered presorted from an automated facility in Springfield, Mass. Mail for North Canaan — which includes the Canaan and East Canaan post offices — now goes to the Falls Village post office. Mail carriers have to drive there to collect bins of letters and packages.It became a controversial issue when the North Canaan post office posted signs warning customers that mail with address errors would likely be rejected. Prior to the change, address issues were not an issue for carriers who were hand-sorting in local offices.Even before DUO started, North Canaan First Selectman Douglas Humes objected to the plan, aimed at saving money, that he said made no sense to him. Further explanations continue to confound him, and he has vowed to continue to question the plan.With any new service approach, an adjustment period would be anticipated. But postal service officials have stated that service will not be compromised and customers will not notice the change. That was hardly the case for customers who received their mail hours later than normal last Saturday.Mail carriers were instructed not to speak to local newspaper reporters, but some did so out of sheer frustration. The gist of what they had to say was that there appears to be no way operation of the new program is going to improve enough to not have a permanent impact on the delivery end.Among the issues are limited parking at the Falls Village post office. Employees and carriers picking up mail for delivery filled the lot during part of the morning. Saturday’s process took up the entire morning as postal workers struggled without a dictated plan or space to handle the new procedure, as well as problems with the presorted mail and packages.At the North Canaan post office, business people are used to dropping in prior to the business day to collect the day’s mail from their post office boxes. That appears likely to change permanently. The new schedule calls for mail for North Canaan post office boxes to arrive there at 9:45 a.m.When the plan was announced earlier this year, Humes wrote to U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, asking them to question the plan’s validity. The underlying concern is that the ultimate plan is to phase out some local post offices. Humes wanted to know where the savings would come from if bulk mail deliveries coming through North Canaan on Route 44 were to drive past the post offices there and continue on to Falls Village. He noted mail carriers would have to use more gas and that delivery service was likely to suffer.Kimberly Peters, manager of the Connecticut Valley District, responded in an April 12 letter explaining that the system had been reorganized to be more efficient. “The DUO program streamlines our back-office operation without any impact to customers,” Peters wrote.She went on to explain that the bulk delivery truck will take a new route into the area, using routes 44 and 4 from Hartford to Falls Village.Humes read the letter at the May 4 meeting of the Board of Selectmen. He was incredulous at the idea that the new route, which includes some of the most traffic-congested parts of Torrington, would not present its own expense- and time-related issues.“In Torrington alone there’s got to be at least a dozen traffic lights on Route 4,” he said. Peters summed up her letter to the senators by assuring them that nothing will change at the local level. “No change of identity or address will take place and services will not be compromised,” she wrote.Local carriers said it is too soon to assess how the automated sorting will affect improperly addressed mail and packages.