Cloteal Farmer – C-VILLE Weekly

Snail mail: Irregular postal deliveries tell a familiar tale

By Jonathan Haynes

Charlottesville residents are again losing their patience with irregular deliveries from the United States Postal Service.

Conan Owen, owner of Relax and Rejuvenate on Arlington Boulevard, says he has repeatedly experienced gaps in service over the past year. “They’re skipping the building entirely,” he says.

Owen says the delays have disrupted his company’s payroll system. “I was literally waiting for a $10,000 check. I got it the next day and it put off my payment schedule.”

Post office representatives have provided little assistance. “You cannot reach the Charlottesville USPS postmaster,” he says. “You can get a clerk who passes a message and they never get back.”

Owen says he emailed the postal service about irregular deliveries several times without a response. Nearly a month after the first complaint, USPS Marketing Manager Benjamin Farmer replied, telling Owen that he “will follow up with the offices and have the postmaster give you a call.”

Eight days later, Owen emailed Farmer again to inform him that he has not heard from the postmaster and that problems with his mail service have persisted. As of this writing, Farmer has yet to reply.

The postmaster’s contact information is not publicly listed. To lodge a complaint, residents must go to their local post office or call the agency’s general service line.

C-VILLE’s attempts to contact Postmaster Cloteal Farmer were unsuccessful.

The post office was established by the United States Constitution to ensure that all residents would receive mail regardless of who they were or where they lived. But it differs from other government agencies in that it is financed by postal stamps in lieu of taxpayer funds.

In the mid-aughts, this unusual structure plunged the post office into fiscal distress as email and online banking began to replace paper mail as Americans’ preferred mode of correspondence. While revenue was declining, the federal government struck another blow to its budget in 2006 by passing a law requiring the agency to fund employee health care plans in advance of their retirement.

The USPS promptly downsized to close its budget deficit, laying off employees and scaling back operations nationwide. In 2010, Charlottesville cut costs by merging its processing and distribution center with the Richmond branch.

The austerity measures kept the service afloat, but administrative problems quickly transpired. The volume of delayed mail doubled between 2009 and 2011, leaving Richmond with the largest quantity of delayed mail in the country.

Complaints from residents surged and the USPS Office of Inspector General stepped in to conduct an audit, which concluded the Charlottesville-Richmond center was both understaffed and overburdened, resulting in a massive delivery backlog.

Subsequently, complaints about the postal service were covered by local news outlets, including C-VILLE, where we wrote about instances of irregular delivery twice last year, after receiving tips from local neighborhoods and businesses on the Downtown Mall—and the recent reports of mail delays suggest the post office’s problems have yet to be resolved.

Over the years, Charlottesville residents have complained about irregular delivery service from the post office.

Dude, where’s my mail? Frustrated residents want answers

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” wrote Herodotus, an ancient Greek philosopher, in what later became the U.S. Postal Service’s unofficial credo.

“That obviously doesn’t stand true in Charlottesville these days,” says Bentivar resident Bill Lawrence.

In May, C-VILLE wrote about a mail mess, as tips poured in that downtown businesses and residents in several neighborhoods were going days without service. When a USPS spokesperson said one career letter carrier had retired and two other employees were out on requested leave, we thought we’d found the answer.

But it wasn’t long before further reports of missing mail hit our inboxes, and we’ve been collecting them ever since.

In November, Lawrence says he went at least three days with no mail delivery or pickup—which wasn’t good for the business he runs from his house.

Lawrence, who channeled his own frustrations into launching a poll about mail delivery satisfaction on a neighborhood website called Nextdoor, says missing packages and parcels have been an issue for his neighborhood and beyond.

But at least one neighboring household, he says, has had the opposite problem—a carrier recently dropped off a fat stack of mail, which included letters to people in entirely different neighborhoods, the Bentivar resident says with a hearty laugh.

A post office representative reportedly told Lawrence that his carrier had taken the entire month of November off, which he says could explain some of the issues.

“It seems, at least in my immediate neighborhood, to have resolved itself,” he says, but adds that he’s aware that people living in other areas of the city haven’t had the same luck.

About a year ago, Rosemont resident Charles Kendig started noticing that his mail was being dropped off later and later, with a couple 11pm delivery times over the summer, and at least twice, he received no mail at all.

“In one case, I was waiting for a check to be delivered,” he says.

When he recently had his mail stopped, he says it never restarted and his mailbox stayed empty. Kendig went to the main post office on Route 29 to pick it up himself.

“Staffing there is unacceptable,” Kendig says. “Last time I was there, only two people were working the [eight] stations and 20-plus people were waiting in line.”

But “to be fair,” Kendig adds, over the weekend when Charlottesville saw its first snow of the winter, his mail arrived by 3pm. “That would work for me every day,” he says.

Postmaster Cloteal Farmer, who now manages all local postal operations, was sworn in to office less than a month ago. It’s Kendig’s hope that she’ll help straighten out the mess.

Farmer did not respond to an interview request.

“The Postal Service is continuing to meet the peak holiday demand. We have planned for this holiday season all year long, which includes hiring seasonal workers,” says Baltimore-based USPS spokesperson Freda Sauter. “We continually review our staffing and scheduling and make necessary adjustments in order to enhance our services, not just for the holidays, but throughout the year.”

But locals who are longing for their regularly scheduled mail delivery aren’t buying it.

Says Kendig, “This is understandable during the holiday season, but not during the normal year.”

Holiday deadlines

Brave enough to ship Aunt Polly her Christmas present this year? Here are the USPS deadlines you won’t want to miss.

Ground shipping: December 14

First-class mail: December 19

Priority mail: December 20

Priority mail express: December 22