Lafayette, CO — Today, Congressman Joe Neguse penned a letter to the United States Postal Service (USPS) District Manager for the Colorado-Wyoming District, Jason McMahill, requesting he urgently address the ongoing delays in mail services occurring in Colorado’s mountain communities. Congressman Neguse’s Office has repeatedly implored the USPS to solve these problems, including by asking the USPS to provide alternate methods to pick up mail, expand opportunities for customers to access their PO boxes, aggressively recruit new staff, and meet with the affected towns’ mayors and county leaders.
“Notwithstanding the herculean efforts of the front line postal workers at the locations above, these rural mountain communities are simply not receiving a level of service even close to what the district management of USPS is required to provide. Our offices receive regular reports of sporadic or nonexistent mail delivery, backlogs of mail and packages piling up behind service desks, unreasonably restricted regular operating hours, unscheduled closures of service desks during posted operating hours, unpredictable hours of operation, lack of access to P.O. boxes, disheveled and unclean public areas, unaddressed maintenance issues, mail and packages inexplicably returned to senders, crippling staff shortages, and customer lines of 60 minutes or longer. […] In order to meet the universal service mandate of the USPS, these locations are in urgent need of your focused and immediate attention,” wrote Congressman Neguse.
Congressman Neguse’s office has received regular complaints from mountain residents regarding mail service, with the volume increasing dramatically in recent months. When Routt County was added to Colorado’s 2nd District in January, the Congressman’s office immediately received a flood of complaints and urgent requests for help from the Steamboat Springs area, where many residents have gone weeks without any mail. Local leaders in Dillon and Silverthorne describe the mail service in their communities as deeply dysfunctional.
The USPS management has failed to provide the level of service Congressman Neguse’s constituents expect and deserve, with too many in the community unable to receive the medications, bills, checks, passports, packages and standard mail they are owed. Recent troubling reports have surfaced highlighting understaffed and under-supported USPS facilities. Delayed and unreliable mail delivery harms rural communities, including their seniors and small businesses. Rep. Neguse has previously written to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to express his deep concerns about operational changes in the U.S. Postal Service negatively impacting Coloradans and the millions of Americans who live in rural communities.
Read the full letter HERE