Re: Friends of the Library

["John and Laurie Danahy" <JDANAHY@turbonet.com>]

Lois;
     As I understand the situation, not being directly involved, the Library
has a bulk mail permit and non profit status.  The FOL was trying to, and
had been, using the library's non profit status to mail the fund raising
announcements.  The FOL could not provide, according the USPS regulations,
evidence of direct association with the library, so the non profit status
was denied to FOL.  There may be more to this, but I am not directly
involved in the discussions.
    At one time, Postmasters had the latitude to allow some kinds of
variations from bulk mail rules, but I think that time is long in the past.
As for the USPS providing an individual employee the kind of decision making
latitude you describe, I can only hope that before the year 3000 the USPS
will recognize and value its employees.
John and Laurie Danahy
jdanahy@turbonet.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Lois Melina <lmelina@moscow.com>
To: John and Laurie Danahy <JDANAHY@turbonet.com>; Vision2020
<vision2020@moscow.com>
Date: Thursday, April 01, 1999 1:55 PM
Subject: Re: Friends of the Library


>Was the bulk rate permit being used for this mailing issued to the Library
>with the FOL using it for this mailing, or to the Friends of the Library?
If
>it had been issued to the FOL, I would think the P.O. would be obliged to
>accept the mailing. But it sounds like the FOL was using the library's
permit.
>
>John, you are correct that the bulk mailing regulations are complex and
seem
>to change on almost a daily basis. I employ a mailing service in part
>because I just can't keep up with them, and I mail on a regular basis. A
>volunteer-based group like FOL, which mails things only sporadically, is in
>even a more disadvantaged position in trying to keep up with rules and
>regulations like those issued by the P.O. Inasmuch as the FOL had used this
>same permit in the past, and there was no glaring commercial message
>involved, but mainly a notification of a book sale to benefit the
>library/permit holder, it would have been nice if the P.O. employee could
>have accepted the mailing while simultaneously informing the FOL that its
>use of the permit was questionable and would have to be looked into.
>However, I do not know how much discretion the P.O. allows its employees in
>matters like this--I suspect they are allowed very little discretion.
>
>Lois
>************************
>Lois Melina
>Editor, "Adopted Child" newsletter
>P.O. Box 9362
>Moscow ID 83843
>
>phone: (208)882-1794
>fax: (208)883-8035
>Lmelina@moscow.com
>www.raisingadoptedchildren.com
>