A ticked-off Boston City Council voted to issue a “rare” subpoena to compel testimony from the local postmaster at next month’s hearing on late mail concerns after the U.S. Postal Service blew off the body’s request to appear at the last one.
The City Council voted 11-1 to approve an order for a summons for USPS Boston Postmaster Joshua Balcunas to appear before the body’s Committee on PILOT Agreements, Institutional, and Intergovernmental Relations at a hearing that has been scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 13.
The Council order, filed by Sharon Durkan and Liz Breadon, notes that Balcunas was “invited to testify” at the first hearing held last week on “inadequate delivery services” by the USPS in Boston neighborhoods, but he “declined the invitation.”
“As the chair of the committee, we were very disappointed not to have a complete conversation,” Breadon said at last week’s City Council meeting. “It would be so much more effective if the representatives of management from the Postal Service had been available to answer our questions directly.”
“This is not a trivial issue,” Breadon added. “This is a very serious issue, and I would hope that the Postal Service would respond to our concerns in a timely way and actually turn up so we could talk to them.”