Stamp committee mum on vacancies at CSAC

By Bill McAllister, Washington Correspondent

The United States Postal Service is keeping silent about whether the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee will be getting new members.

With the retirements of former chair Jean Picker Firstenberg of Los Angeles and Cary Brick of upstate New York, membership on the committee has dropped to 11. The retirements were reported in the Feb. 3 Linn’s, page 1.

The issue was not discussed during CSAC’s two-day January meeting in Washington, Linn’s was told.

In the past, the committee has had 15 members, a membership large enough, members have said, to handle the work of its subcommittees between quarterly meetings.

When the new CSAC chair, Janet Klug of Ohio, was asked what Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe’s plans for the panel were, she replied through a Postal Service spokesman.

“The Postmaster General is considering the needs of CSAC and people who might fulfill those needs,” she told Linn’s. “When the PMG makes a decision, we will inform you.”

CSAC members staged a protest at its September 2013 meeting over what they said in a letter to Donahoe were efforts by Postal Service officials to reduce the committee’s role in stamp selections, as reported in the Oct. 28, 2013, Linn’s, page 14.