Wayward, returned and delayed mail have become a vexing problem for Ward County.
“It’s ridiculous what we are putting up with here,” County Commissioner Alan Walter told Minot’s local government liaison committee last week. He said he plans to visit with North Dakota’s congressional delegation during an upcoming trip to Washington about restoring mail processing in Minot that had been eliminated in 2015.
“I am looking to get the community rallied behind this and get support for it,” Walter said. “We are really getting short-changed in this community.”
The postal service reports only a portion of Minot’s mail processing was moved to Bismarck in 2015. Minot retains processing of letters and parcels destined to zip codes beginning with 587 and 588.
“We process mail in the format that proves greatest efficiency,” postal spokesperson Marcela Rivera said in an email. “Please be assured that the U.S. Postal Service is committed to preserving the role of the Postal Service in every American community, by providing a framework to achieve significant cost savings as part of our plan to return the organization to financial stability.
“Delivery performance in Minot remains strong,” she added, “and we are not aware of any systemic delivery issues from Minot residents. However we encourage anyone with concerns to utilize the 1-800-ASK-USPS or visit usps.com. Their concerns will be recorded and addressed.”
The Ward County Auditor’s Office brought 13 returned letters, received over a couple of days in late March, to the city-county-parks-school liaison meeting. The letters included those mailed by the office in 2017 and 2018 that now were being returned despite correct addresses.