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NEWS
City Council to weigh in on postal study
Huntington City Hall.
HUNTINGTON -- The U.S. Postal Service will conduct a feasibility study to determine whether some operations at its processing and distribution facility on Virginia Avenue should be moved to Charleston.
The study, which could take several months, will look at transportation, delivery and processing functions as well as the impact that moving some of the operations to the processing and distribution center in Charleston would have on the Huntington community, said Cathy Yarosky, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service.
The Virginia Avenue facility employs 90 people and processes approximately 70,000 pieces of mail a day. It serves areas with zip codes beginning with 255, 256 and 257.
Huntington City Council will weigh in on the issue during its meeting Monday evening with a resolution that opposes any move by the Postal Service.
"Though the City of Huntington is always supportive of any efforts by governmental entities to improve efficiencies and increase public service, the City of Huntington believes that the relocation of postal services from Huntington to Charleston will not improve Postal Service quality and will have a negative impact on the local economy," according to the resolution.
Yarosky, however, said the Postal Service has no intentions of relocating the Virginia Avenue facility and all of its employees to Charleston. The study will only look at whether some operations should be consolidated with the Charleston processing and distribution center, she said. A similar feasibility study will be conducted at the Beckley processing and distribution facility, she said.
"It's a very normal business practice that any company would go through, especially given the economic realities," Yarosky said. "We've seen a 13 percent decrease in business over the past year, and we are always reviewing and evaluating resources nationwide to maximize efficiency, cut costs and save money."
In other business Monday, City Council will discuss the first reading of an ordinance authorizing the Huntington Sanitary Board to partner with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on a riverbank restoration project along the Ohio River in Highlawn.
The riverbank near Staunton Road in Highlawn has eroded to the point that more than 1,000 feet of a main sewer line that serves all of the the east end of Huntington is exposed, said Loretta Covington, executive director of the Sanitary Board.
"If that line were to totally collapse, it would cause serious problems for the river and for communities along the river," Covington told council members during a work session Friday.
The project will cost approximately $310,000. The Corps of Engineers will pay for $201,500 of the project, while the Sanitary Board will pay $108,500.
Waste materials from the project will be hauled away on a barge to minimize the disturbance to the Highlawn neighborhood, Covington said.
Huntington City Council meets at 7:30 p.m. Monday at City Hall, 800 5th Ave. The meeting is televised live on channel 24 of the Comcast Cable system.
