Continuing To Address Postal Issues In Lansdale
As some of you know, Congressman Fitzpatrick and I have been working together over the last two years to try and address the challenges that exist in the Lansdale Post Office. In that time, we have met with multiple representatives of the post office oversight team and the leadership in the local post office to discuss how to improve delivery in our area and to better understand the full scope of the challenge our post office faces. In this process, we have realized that one of the key issues relates directly to the level of staffing in our post office and the inability to hire enough staff to fully deliver the mail on-time and accurately everyday across the entire borough.
This lack of staffing has led to mandatory overtime work leading to further employee burnout, substitute delivery people (usually sourced from Philly) who do not know the routes leading to inaccurate delivery or non-delivery, and finally, when no one can fill a route, non-delivery of mail for days on end. On top of all the existing issues, the ongoing pandemic has created a far higher volume of mail making routes even longer and more time consuming.
This challenge does not dismiss the reality that the residents of Lansdale need their mail delivered. They rely on bills to appear on time, drugs to be delivered before supplies run out, gifts to show up before the holidays, and a plethora of other basic needs that rely on timely daily mail delivery.
Since improvements at the post office were not occurring at a pace that was necessary, Congressman Fitzpatrick and I wrote letters to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to ask for his direct intervention into the matter and help us resolve, once and for all, the challenges that Lansdale is facing. His response to our request was, in a word, underwhelming.
In his correspondence, the Postmaster’s office politely points out that everything we are stating is correct and that the Lansdale Post Office is struggling but believes it to be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. Which is obviously untrue as this have been going on for years. Furthermore, his office suggests we continue to meet with local and regional officials to discuss the hiring needs of the Lansdale Post Office. Admittedly, I am not positive what impact or value this will have as neither the Congressman nor I can make the hiring process easier or the job more desirable (both of which are necessary). The Postmaster’s office, as best I can tell, has ignored the issue entirely and suggested we simply continue to work with local staff to address the problems rather than joining the discussion and recognizing that there is a systemic issue and not just a pandemic related one.
To see what we can do; the Congressman and I will be meeting with regional post office staff again to discuss the issue. However, the only way to get any sort of fundamental improvement is to, in a phrase, scream louder. While the Congressman and I have shared emails, letters, and stories about the struggles with mail in the borough with post office staff, our efforts to highlight the severity of the problem seems to be falling on deaf ears. This might be because two people are just too easily ignored and can be pushed aside without a second thought. However, many voices become much harder to ignore and now is the time to make sure they hear the community loud and clear.
I would ask that every resident experiencing issues with the mail call the Lansdale Postmaster directly at 215-412-4983 and make sure that he is fully and completely aware of the depth of the issue we are facing as a community. If you are willing, or able, to share this experience with me via email, I would welcome the correspondence to ensure that there is a proper paper trail that marks the time and date of the phone call and clearly highlights the solution that you were able to achieve with the Postmaster (my email is mayor@lansdale.org).
Obviously, the Congressman and I will continue to work on your behalf to try and fix this serious issue. However, it is painfully clear that we will not be able to achieve sustained and systemic improvement without the help of residents and I hope you will all join us in this endeavor.