To address complaints about slow delivery of local mail here in the Lehigh Valley, the rocket scientists at the United States Postal Service are thinking about having your mail sent to Harrisburg and even Lancaster, and then shipping it back here. That'll teach you to keep your yapper shut! Oh yeah, in order to pretend they are transparent, these planners will conduct one public meeting today ... in Trexlertown ... at 3 pm.
Matt Dock, a mail processing clerk, thinks this is cRaZy. Here's what he says:
"For those I know who live and work in the Lehigh Valley, Hazleton, and Stroudsburg areas, this is relevant to all of you.
"I know this looks complicated, but the basics is that the US Postal Service is planning on making changes to the processing of your letters and packages that will ship mail from this area out to Harrisburg, mingled with their own mail, then shipped back to the Lehigh Valley to be able to deliver something that may even be going to your next door neighbor. This could potentially add days to the delivery time of simple mailings, from bills to medicines.
"The US Postal Service is holding a public meeting at the Movie Tavern in Trexlertown on Thursday, November 30th at 3:00pm. Yes, that is a terrible time and location for business owners throughout the Lehigh Valley to be able to attend such a meeting. As an employee I can only do so much to convince a stubborn management, but the public's help would be greatly appreciated."
24 comments:
I pay a lot of taxes and all I want is my mail on time and PBS. Harrisburg area is teaming with decently paid government workers both state and federal. Lets keep a few of those good jobs here. Here is a job for our local politicians no matter what party. They must fight to keep the good jobs here. Lehigh Valley needs good jobs.
Three points:
1) Is this method used by any private sector carrier (UPS, FedEx, Amazon, for example)? In my experience, the answer is No;
2) I drive to and from Harrisburg on US22/I-78/I-81 monthly. These are three of the most underengineered and dangerous roadways I have the displeasure of driving. Brilliantly, PennDoT decided it was "smart" to have four lanes of traffic (two from I-78 Westbound and two from I-81 Southbound) merge down to two lanes less than a half mile after the merge. Traffic is backed up on I-81 as you approach Harrisburg during midday almost every day of the week - including weekends. And, semis make up a very high percentage of the traffic. And, don't get me started on 22;
3) What problem is this "solution" supposed to solve? As Johnny Carson glibly observed about the Swine Flu vaccine (the vaccine caused more illnesses than the Swine Flu itself): "Here's a cure for which there is no known disease!"
Does this have anything to do with the Trump appointed Louis Dejoy?
If you take a look back it appeared he was trying to conduct election interference in 2020. The board that elects them now has enough votes to get rid of him. Maybe this is the groundwork for 2024.
This all started with the Trump appointee who decided it was a brilliant idea to remove sorting machines from the LV to "save money". Back then it seemed to be a political effort to undermine mail in voting. Now this seems like a broader effort to undermine the entire USPS to eliminate govt jobs and justify privatization.
The LV already has disproportionately fewer state jobs than phila, Pitt, and Harrisburg. The commonwealthnof PA has disproportionately fewer Federal jobs and facilities than many other southern states. This also seems like a wealth and power redistribution by carryover political appointees. Why would they even consider Lancaster when the LV has greater in population and better access to other urban cores? Don't "Tuberville" our mail service!
And all you liberals continue to want the government to solve your troubles. They can't even deliver the mail. But trust their vaccines. They've been tested.
We'll prop up this dying system at great expense in order to protect Democrats' mail-in voting advantage. It's like when railroad lines were forced to continue to employ coal shovelers, years after coal engines had been replaced by diesel. USPS sold out in a bad deal to Amazon (who hasn't?). Package delivery is where it's at. Residential has gone almost entirely online. My 88-year old mom is able to navigate this. Mail as we've long known it, needs to understand it's dead, and simply fall over.
I reside in a rural development in a Bethlehem suburb. There are days when we don't get mail delivered nor is it picked up and it is not a Holiday or a weekend. I sent a Birthday card to my sister-in-law in Bethlehem Twsp. and it took six days to get there. I mailed a Card to our Granddaughter in Philadelphia and she finally got it after 28 days. I paid a credit card Bill and was notified the payment was late. After the Credit card Company checked the "post mark Date" they saw it was mailed with plenty of time and said "forget about the late notice". Weare having enough trouble with our "Rural Mail" without sending it to Harrisburg.
Trump's guy is still in charge at the USPS ... yeah the same guy that helped put the brakes on mail-in ballot processing during the election, so this isn't a shock to me. Apparently he's an accountant, had no prior experience at the USPS and was the founder the trucking company New Breed Logistics. Bottom line, 30,000 foot thinking from this guy, not local service.
Which is quite the opposite of what the Post Office used to be about: "Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep the postmen from their appointed rounds.” Government funded services will continuously be whittled down to nothing by the anti-government, low tax, privatize everything (mostly republican) agenda.
The Lehigh facility isn't exactly the greatest. I'm currently waiting on a package that has been somewhere between Lehigh Valley and Easton since Nov. 17th. Other times in the past it has taken 5 days for a Priority mail package to get from Lehigh Valley to Philly.
Will this change help? Probably not - more likely there needs to be a serious evaluation of the Lehigh Valley facility.
My out of state friends call our post office the black hole. Would seem a problem could be fixed rather than avoid by this proposal
The TDS in this echo chamber is strong. Literally half of you are blaming a guy that's been gone for 3+ years lol. Laughable.
Your tax dollars are not used to fund the USPS.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-is-the-u-s-postal-service-governed-and-funded/
The GAO needs to investigate this! I have heard new mail carriers are offer partime jobs that are not family sustaining w benefits. Also, many job postings go unfulfilled. This seems like a fabricated crisis intent on undermining consumer confidence with an ultimate goal of transitioning away from USPS.
Why would any sound mind reduce the number of sorting machines in an area that has a backlog of mail sorting?
Liberal have screwed up our country, yet they blame it on Trump. Send all liberals to the Gaza strip.
Problems have always existed. They got worse under Obama when the disastrous Amazon deal was made with Bezos, a campaign donor. The system collapsed in many places under CoViD. Carriers and sorters were fired for not accepting an experimental goop into their veins. Many never returned. Physical mail is largely unnecessary and these discussions will be academic in a few years.
I don't see what the problem is. About three to four years ago when mail delivery was really bad, I used to track my packages. It didn't seem uncommon for packages to get to Lehigh Valley and then be shipped to Harrisburg and back. I had a number of packages that bounced back and forth three times. I guess USPS got bored with that and occasionally shipped them to York instead.
Another time I had my neighbor send me a check. She called two weeks later and wanted to know why I hadn't cashed it. Seems I still hadn't got it. It arrived a couple of days later. It took almost three weeks to move 100 yards.
I'm glad those elite business executives are making things so much better.
So where is Wild? Where is Fetterman? Where is Casey? Tell them to do their job!
All I get is junk mail anyways. Couldn’t care less.
The Post Office should stop handing cheap fliers by companies. This burden doesn’t work or help economically.
If tax dollars aren't used, why would any politician have a say? Operating like a business often means consolidation and elimination. LV was one of the worst locations in the country, even before CoViD. I don't know the reason. But other locations performed better. Closing underperforming locations is sound. Unions will bark. They tried to keep unnecessary rural post offices open about a decade ago. Their job is to protect jobs. That's also part of business.
Leave it to the MAGA crowd to blame the mail problems on Obama when in fact it was actually TRUMP who started this by making his crony Louis Dejoy postmaster in an effort to slow mail during election time. Every time I hear Republicans spout off it convinces me that Republicans are truly the scum of the earth.
@4:57 pm
Bernie, I think Russian trolls have infiltrated this comment section
This is a needed service and should not become a business. Postmaster DeLoy owns a trucking company, BTW. Conflict of interest?
Blame this on DeJoy the Trump appointed busboy who hates PA and who should have been removed over a year ago after ridiculous decisions made on mailing machines and delivery schedules at the Lehigh Valley mail center.
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