The photo of the Rev. Dr. Deborah A. Watkins (council-at-large candidate for Canton City Council) was taken at a Canton celebration of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.Recently, Dr. Watkins appeared at Canton City Council (January 26, 2009) to speak on the issue of moving of certain Canton U.S. Postal jobs to Akron.
Here are Dr. Watkins' remarks:
Dr. Deborah A. Watkins as he just mentioned is my name. My address is 9204 St NE. I am in the 2nd Ward.Do you agree with candidate Watkins? Should stopping the removal of postal workers jobs from Canton to Akron be a top priority with Canton council members?
I would like to address this information to the entire body, to the Mayor, to his cabinet members, to the acting President taking President Schulman’s place and to all the Council Members or Persons.
As of April the 1 , the Post Office service will be re-routing Canton’s mail to Akron. I am sure that some of you might be aware of that. The Post Office that will be effected are several to my understanding and one is the New Market downtown on 4 Street, 220 SW.
The second one is our main Post Office which is on Cleveland Avenue. That would be Cleveland Avenue NW, 26, in the 2600 block.
The Post Office workers and the community, we’re again upset about this issue and this situation.
And you see, I want to mention again and emphasize it and preface that statement with saying again we’re upset because, last year in 2008, the community, the Postal Worker s, and some of you Council people were there at a meeting which we held. Our problem with the meetings that we held, we really didn’t get the full turn out of the entire Council and we should have.
It was the concerns and problems that we had with, one the wanted to take especially Ward 2, take it and change it and put cluster mailboxes. Now along with the cluster mailboxes, they also had wanted to take and re-route or route the mailing at that point in 2008, they wanted to start it.
But there such, let me say, strong support or opposition against it that we were able to and as I see it this time to only delay the situation.
I have to say to the Council, to the President, to the Mayor, what are we doing about this problem or this situation?
Maybe it's just me, after a long day, but this speech seems a bit incoherent?
ReplyDeleteNo, city council has MUCH larger issues to deal with than cluster boxes in one ward and 20 jobs that will leave the post office, regardless.
BTW, is her ward where the letter carrier was murdered? (Might help explain the worries about cluster boxes)
It would probably be impossible to find anyone that would not like to see the processing of mail remain in Canton. However, to demand of the postal service that they relinquish their old, wasteful and inefficient manner of conducting business on one hand, only to be confronted by politicians and citizens making an exact counter demand is worse than hypocritical. This is especially true given that the stamping with "Akron/Canton" or some similar reference to Canton will remain. Also the opportunity for these workers to keep their jobs but work in Akron is also being offered. The regional win and overall general welfare is well served if we allow the postal service to increase their efficiencies and minimize their costs. It is not like the processing is moving to Pittsburgh or Cincinnatti where actual jobs would be lost by our Canton citizenry. A small price for us to pay compared to the effects that other cities may be feeling from the postal service consolidation.
ReplyDeleteNow let's focus on some real issues such as how we can use the postal service consolidation model to consolidate more of our services locally. We will all need this if we are to survive this economic downturn.
I agree with 'Anonymous' (post #1). The Post Office seems to be working hard to make the transition as painless as possible for all people involved. No jobs are being lost. We can not expect the Post Office to ignore cost-saving measures. Too many other government entities are inefficient spenders of money (Stark public schools, Healy's office, etc.)... let's applaud the Post office for setting a good example.
ReplyDeleteMartin, I did not see a link to a website for Ms. Watkins in your post. Do you know if she has one? I am having trouble fining any info out about any of the candidates, except for one (Cynthia Vignos). I for one will not be supporting any candidate who does not try to educate the voters on their platform.