Mention the U.S. Postal Service distribution center to anyone in Lewiston and watch for a scowl. Folks here are still plenty mad, angry that the Postal Service broke its promise to bring 800 jobs and a $55 million payroll to this community.

In retrospect, that broken promise might have been good fortune. In fact, if the Postal Service had maintained its decision to move here we might be angrier now than we were two years ago when we were forsaken for southern Maine.

On Monday, the Postal Service said that it is still moving forward with construction at its chosen site in Scarborough, it’s just not sure when construction might begin. A whopping $13 billion debt is crushing this quasi-governmental agency and postal projects across the nation are stalled under a construction freeze.

The Postal Service has already spent $3 million to buy land in Scarborough, which is great for R.J. Grondin & Sons which sold the property, but that’s as far as the project has proceeded. It will be at least 2005 before anything more is done.

At a recent Planning Board meeting, a suggestion was made that the project may not happen at all. That the debt-burdened Postal Service may close three plants — the one in Portland and two in New Hampshire — and consolidate its operations into one massive distribution center in Newington, N.H.

One of the reasons the Postal Service reconsidered its decision to locate in Lewiston was because the union argued loud and strong that employees living in the Portland area found the 35-mile commute to Lewiston to be unfair and more than a little inconvenient.

What about that commute to Newington? Makes the drive to Lewiston look pretty attractive.

And, workers would have to deal with the same income tax issue that plagues Maine workers earning a living at New Hampshire’s Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

If the Postal Service had stayed with its original decision to locate in Lewiston, construction might already under way. Or we might be frustrated with the construction freeze now holding up the project in Scarborough.

Instead, we have a Wal-Mart distribution center. And, even though the city may have given away $17 million in incentives to lure Wal-Mart here, the center will employ hundreds of people and pay a certain amount of property taxes. And, it’s unlikely that the giant retail chain will go out of business any time soon.

We can’t say the same about the U.S. Postal Service.

For Scarborough, it seems, winning the distribution center project may be a hollow victory.


jmeyer@sunjournal.com