Who’s Your Daddy, SGV ?

As the US Postal Service seeks to cut billions from its budget, a small scale war is playing out in postal centers all over the country.  Today, USPS announced it may cease delivering mail on Saturdays.

Plain and simple, there’s just less paper mail today than there used to be.

But there’s something subtle and exciting afoot that impacts Santa Clarita.

In a Feb 18 2010 article in the Whittier Daily News (and another posted yesterday), the cold hard truth was revealed to residents of the San Gabriel Valley: your mail will be assimilated.

On Feb. 1, the Postal Service said it would expand the study to see if it could move the operations to centers in Los Angeles, Santa Clarita and Santa Ana, said Postal Service spokesman Richard Maher.

“We are looking at the possibility of consolidating some of the operations, we’re not looking at closing or moving it,” he said.

But some postal workers said they weren’t hearing the whole truth. They believe the Postal Service may close the only mail processing center in the San Gabriel Valley and slow residents’ mail.

The protesters are powerless to stop it.  And so is their local Congresswoman:

Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Santa Fe Springs, understands the Postal Service is trying to reduce costs, but said Thursday she didn’t understand the agency’s moves.

“It doesn’t make sense to send mail to Santa Clarita, 30 or 40 miles away,” she said, adding mail would be delayed. “We are an economic hub.”

Maybe, but you definitely don’t have Awesometown (much less Newhall) in your hood, Ms. Napolitano.

See, this is kinda personal to me.  Although I came to SCV from OC, I grew up in Diamond Bar – a town known for three things: 1) the town adjacent to the convergence of the 57 and 60 freeways, 2) the residence of Snoop Doggy Dogg, and 3) the likely site of LA’s nascent football stadium.  I have vivid, troubling memories of mailing letters to people via our large, shiny Post Office, only to find out they had a “City of Industry” postmark on them.  Now it’s sweet revenge.  If this goes through, mail from my old 91765 zip would have a Santa Clarita postmark.  Who’s your Daddy, SGV?  All your base are belong to us.