It’s now been almost a month since the U.S. Postal Service canceled a public input meeting about possible plans to convert its processing and distribution facility in Kingsford into a local processing center.

That session originally was set for 3 p.m. Feb. 8 at the National Guard Armory in Kingsford. Having it in the afternoon, when most people are working and likely would have to take time off to attend, was perhaps in the hope few would show. At the very least, it was an added inconvenience for the public.

But with protests and criticism already raining down on the USPS, from regular citizens to state and federal lawmakers, turnout likely would have been huge — had it happened. Instead, it was called off less than 24 hours before it was supposed to take place, supposedly due to “unforeseen scheduling circumstances.”

And despite calls for it to be quickly rescheduled, that has not happened even nearly four weeks later. The public is still waiting to hear details on this “improvement plan,” have their chance to weigh in on how this affects their lives and at least give USPS officials an earful.

According to the local American Postal Workers Union, the USPS already has significantly altered mail delivery in the Upper Peninsula. Effective Jan. 8, the USPS changed the trucking schedules for the mail collected at 498-499 area zip code post offices. “Instead of picking up the mail each evening for processing in Kingsford, the routes were eliminated. The mail now sits in those offices overnight and is finally trucked to Kingsford’s Upper Peninsula Mail Processing Center in the early morning hours of the following day and processed there at approximately noon, causing a delay in outgoing mail and causing Upper Peninsula mail to take two days for delivery instead of overnight.

“Not only is first-class mail affected but Upper Peninsula Express Mail now takes two days as well, instead of guaranteed overnight,” a union representative wrote last month.

That delay affects the timely delivery of medicines, business and industry parts and legally required water samples. The change came into practice with no prior warning for the U.P. or northern Wisconsin residents.

The delivery downgrade has come as USPS also studies the functionality of the Kingsford facility, proposing it be modernized as a local processing center with some mail operations moved to Green Bay, Wis. The Kingsford evaluation, according to USPS, is part of a $40 billion investment strategy to upgrade and improve USPS processing, transportation and delivery.

The Kingsford processing facility is the only one in the U.P. and the region’s lawmakers say it’s central to the timely processing and delivery of mail.

Sure, the USPS has set up a way to submit comments on the changes online at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/mpfr-iron-mountain-mi. But not everyone is comfortable using that method.

And when postal changes as significant as these are being considered, USPS has an obligation to face the public, in person, not from behind a computer screen in a distant office.

For now, it looks like USPS is ducking the public. And until that public session is back on the calendar, it’ll continue to seem like yet another “improvement plan” that is no improvement at all for the customers relying on this vital service.