Image default

Postal Problems in the East End

Both The Richmond Times Dispatch and Richmond Magazine wrote about the Saturday event where Congressman McEachin met with members of the community frustrated with the current state of the Post Service in our area.

Following several mail delivery complaints the McEachin office received from several constituents throughout the 4th Congressional District, the intent of this town hall was to find a solution.

Shortly before 11 a.m., the line of people waiting to share their thoughts had snaked through the crowd and around the side of the auditorium; their grievances spanned the gamut: receiving mail informing residents to report for jury duty after the scheduled date; learning bills had gone into collections after not receiving initial warning letters; health coverage being terminated because the necessary marketplace correspondence was not received; Social Security and other forms of monthly pay — particularly for the elderly and disabled — going missing; communications from the Internal Revenue Service being found down the street; neighbors collecting mail discarded in alleys and streets and, in one case, a scheduled prescription medication for a neighbor left in someone else’s front yard (the Richmond Police Department was called to collect it); the list goes on. 

Sarah King, Richmond Magazine

Local USPS representatives also attended the town hall sharing their experience with mail delivery issues directly with the community.

USPS worker Georgina Griffin took to the mic to explain she had come out to the event on her day off with her two daughters to hear the issues customers are facing in the area. 
“For me, I take pride in what I do,” Griffin began, noting that she has been employed with postal service for 13 years and recently transferred to Richmond from Florida. 

Check out the articles here. We expect a formal response from Congressman McEachin in the next month detailing a potential plan of action:

“It’s gratifying when my staff works so hard to put together a meeting like this and [residents] actually come out and respond,” McEachin said. “That’s what we’re supposed to do — to try to make government work — to bring different aspects of the federal government to our constituents. That’s the best part of being a representative, is to try to make government work for people, and we’ll see how successful we’ve been.”  

9 comments

Karen Smith 01/14/2019 at 9:47 AM

We still need a number we can call to reach the PO on 25th. The number listed is a constant busy signal.

Reply
Church Hill People's News 01/14/2019 at 12:07 PM

We’ll reach out Karen. Will let you know what we hear.

Reply
Karen Smith 01/14/2019 at 1:32 PM

Church Hill People’s News Cool! Thank you!

Reply
Karen Smith 01/16/2019 at 11:36 AM

Church Hill People’s News Hi-so, now the local number posted on the USPS site says it’s “out of service”. Ditto for the Klockner station -and I know that phone number used to be good!

Reply
SueWho 01/14/2019 at 11:31 AM

I attended the meeting and was very pleased to see the turnout and listen to all of the speakers’ comments. Those of us who didn’t speak publicly had the opportunity to write down our comments and experiences regarding our mail service and hand them in.

I’m very thankful to Congressman McEachin and his staff for organizing this meeting with the post office management and his constituents, they let the people have the floor to vent their frustrations and ask questions. Hopefully this ‘town hall’ will bring about some much needed changes in our mail delivery.

Reply
Eric S. Huffstutler 01/14/2019 at 12:52 PM

@1 Karen Smith,

That is what they do. Will take the phone off the hook and ignore calls. Sometimes for the entire day past closing hours. When it is on the hook, various department numbers given out do not answer them when it does ring. This is a problem that goes all the way to Brook Road, Sandston, and the Postmaster’s office. I experienced it for years and hope that will get fixed.

Reply
Melanie P 01/15/2019 at 4:59 PM

Hopefully there will be results from the town hall meeting, it’s a shame that the postal service can’t be relied on. It feels like someone is sifting through our mail and we are only receiving catalogs or junk consistently. We have friends in Chesterfield who received an invite to a wedding from the west coast last Friday and we have yet to receive ours. Who knows if it will ever arrive – we know for a fact it was sent out at the exact same time. Sad and disappointing.

Reply
jean mcdaniel 01/18/2019 at 11:48 AM

Years ago we were having mail dilvery problems and numerous complaints achieved no results. I went in person to the 25th St. post office to make a complaint. The “supervisor” I talked to assured me that things would be ‘straightened out’.

Several days later I received a bright red card in the mail stating that there had been a complaint about mail delivery and on the bottom of the card in one half inch high letter it said, “DO NOT DELIVER THIS CARD”

I took the bright red card to the 25th St. post office to speak to the ‘supervisor’ and was reassured that things would be straightened out. She did want the card back which I refused. I told her I was keeping it to show at parties. That was at least 8 years ago. I still have the red card and the postal workers still can’t read!

Reply
District 7 Citizen 01/22/2019 at 3:38 PM

How busy can they be at 2:30 in the afternoon? Tried calling 25th Street and as someone said, is a constant busy signal. The Montrose number just rings, no answer. This is an “improvement” Congressman McEachin?

I have a package that says is out for delivery but our mail has already been delivered and I was here at the time.

Reply

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.