Beginning in January or shortly thereafter, mail sent from Lancaster will be postmarked "Harrisburg, PA." The Lancaster postmark, seen here, will only be available by taking mail to the post office and asking for it to be specially handstamped.
Goodbye, Lancaster.
Hello, Harrisburg.
Beginning in January or shortly thereafter, the letters you drop in your mailbox for delivery will be postmarked "Harrisburg, PA."
The loss of the Lancaster postmark will be the most publicly noticeable effect of the U.S. Postal Service's move to transfer mail-processing jobs out of its Harrisburg Pike plant to Dauphin County.
"They're going to take the mail to Harrisburg to cancel it," said Mike Stephenson, president of American Postal Workers Union Local 95, who opposed the move announced by senior officials Thursday.
"We said it's important to the tourist industry, but they didn't seem to care."
Even if you're mailing a letter to someone else in town or even on your own block, the letter will make a circuitous 90-mile loop to Dauphin County for cancellation and back before getting to its destination.
Heck, even the visitors guides mailed out by Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau will have a Harrisburg postmark.
Chris Barrett, president of the visitors bureau, doesn't think that'll be a big deal.
"So much of what we do is online, and it's growing every year," he said.
For those who do get paper guides or want to mail out postcards from here?
"I'm not sure they ever look at the postmark, even when they send a postcard from here," he said. "I'm not sure it's something they think about too much."
The only way to get a Lancaster postmark after the consolidation is complete early in 2012 will be to take your mail to the local post office and ask for it to be specially handstamped.
The U.S. Postal Service announced Thursday that it will transfer some mail-processing jobs out of its Harrisburg Pike plant to Dauphin County or other areas, a move expected to save the beleaguered agency more than $2 million a year.
The agency did not say exactly how many jobs would be moved out of the Lancaster post office, but a report made public in the spring recommended a "net decrease" of 31 positions. Some 200 people work at the facility.
Stephenson said 53 workers will be moved out of the Harrisburg Pike facility — about 24 clerks, 19 mail handlers, six maintenance workers and four supervisors. Many will be transferred to Harrisburg, where the Lancaster mail-processing operations will be consolidated.
Debra Miller, a postal worker here, described the postmark earlier this year as "the identity of a community" and brand extension on which many local businesses depend.
"We are one of the most famous counties in America," she wrote to opponents of the consolidation. "From a marketing standpoint, it makes perfect sense to keep our postmark, identity and history."
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