This from Linn's Bill McAlllister:

Postal Service will sell postage for bound printed matter rate on request

By Bill McAllister Washington Correspondent

    In a May 24 statement, United States Postal Service officials created an opening to resolve a dispute over the bound printed matter rate. They declared that postal clerks would sell postage for nonpresorted bound printed matter, but "only when customers specifically request this service."

    Clerks still will not volunteer the service, officials said. Customers must specifically request it.

    The statement noted that the rate is used almost entirely by business customers and that the counter policy would "streamline the retail experience."

    Months ago, the Postal Service had declared that postage would not be sold for bound printed matter at retail counters.

    The rate is a relatively inexpensive service for mailing parcels weighing up to 15 pounds that contain catalogs, books, directories, manuals and other permanently bound volumes.

    When the Postal Regulatory Commission delivered its 758-page ruling on postal rate proposals Feb. 27, San Francisco postal activist Douglas F. Carlson at first was delighted.

    The commission sided with Carlson's claim that the United States Postal Service was unfairly planning to discriminate against individual postal customers by refusing to sell postage over the counter for the rate.

    The commission rejected the refusal, calling the idea "duplicitous and inconsistent with the obligations of a public entity."

    The Postal Service board of governors then decided to ignore the commission's recommendation.

    In the board's 282-page notice filed with the commission March 31, the postal board declared its intention to ignore the commission ruling on bound printed matter.

    The board called the commission's ruling "illogical" and noted that in the past the Postal Service had been able to "re-brand certain products." That's what the board said it wanted to do with singlepiece bound printed matter mail, but the commission flatly rejected that change.     The board's notice said: "In the commission's view the proposal apparently was tainted by the Postal Service's intention to accept at the retail window only prestamped parcels as bound printed matter.

    "We think it is within the Postal Service's authority to manage its sales channels."

    The Postal Service's decision to sell postage for the rate upon request should end the dispute.