Much Ado About Nothing Dept. (Post Office division) (cont.)

UPDATE, Oct. 22: With the help of Sen. Herb Kohl's office, we asked the U.S. Postal Service for further clarification. This is what the Kohl staffer told us:

"I spoke with the Racine Postmaster, Ron Farnsworth, and he said the move of the carriers is simply a rumor and he doesn’t have any plans at this time to move the carriers. The move of the Post Office to a smaller location downtown is still under review."

Original post:

We almost missed this -- the U.S. Postal Service announcement online says it was released on Oct. 9 -- but it appears that no postal facilities in Southeastern Wisconsin are on the endangered list.

Again.

In fact, the only one in the state still listed among 371 "retail stations and branches that remain under consideration for possible consolidation" is in Green Bay.

That's right. Neither the main Post Office downtown nor the Post Office on 4 Mile Road in Caledonia is on the latest list. Once again, we might add: We reported the same thing on Sept. 2, when a list of 413 offices considered for consolidation was released without our Post Offices on it, but that clearly didn't reassure everyone since local Postal Workers demonstrated on Main Street on Sept. 8 to keep the office open.

The Postal Service's Oct. 8 notice says "Today's announcement updates a review process begun earlier this summer that examined approximately 3,600 stations and branches in urban and suburban areas across the country, focusing on facilities in relatively close proximity to one another, to determine where consolidations might be feasible, while maintaining customer access to postal services."

It was during that review that the Post Office on 4 Mile was listed, in July, among 677 facilities the Postal Service was considering closing. The Journal Times later reported that it was the Main Street Post Office that was in danger, although we never found any evidence of that in official sources.

In any case, here's the Postal Service's press release from Oct. 8, and here's the current endangered list.

The release does offer this caveat: "Today's announcement is part of the Station and Branch Optimization and Consolidation initiative that is currently being reviewed by the Postal Regulatory Commission. As part of this proceeding, the Postal Service has filed periodic updates identifying the retail stations and branches that remain under consideration.

"The filing does not represent a final decision on consolidation. To date, no facility-specific final decisions have been made as a result of this initiative."

No doubt, final word will be in the mail some day.