Here is the text of a letter sent by Councilmember Charles Allen regarding ongoing mail delivery issues in Ward 6:
August 31, 2021
Eddie Masangcay
Postmaster, District of Columbia United States Postal Service Washington, DC 20260
Dear Postmaster Masangcay:
I write to express deep concerns over your performance and services to residents of Ward 6 and the District of Columbia. It has now become a common expectation of many that residential U.S. Postal Service mail delivery in many neighborhoods occurs once a week at best. This experience is not a recent phenomenon, but rather, we are approaching a full year of this degraded and unreliable service.
After months of these delays, Congresswoman Norton previously wrote you in April 2021 about the concerns and the response appeared to simply blame staff availability and apologize for “any inconvenience.” I’m concerned that USPS leadership views this as a minor inconvenience, rather than the critical failure that it is. This goes well beyond a delayed birthday card -- residents are missing or seeing significant delays in vital medical, legal, and financial correspondence. It is clear that the USPS employees delivering the mail are equally frustrated by the systems behind them that are continuing to fail.
As the USPS is a federal agency, the Council of the District of Columbia has no direct oversight over your operations and performance. And I am grateful that Congresswoman Norton and her staff have been helpful in taking on constituent cases as they are reported to us. But this has not created overall improvements, residents have not seen any material improvements since your April correspondence, and your service delivery continues to fail repeatedly in numerous communities in the District.
I would like an update on what steps are being taken to immediately improve mail delivery in Ward 6 and the District of Columbia to restore consistent, reliable, daily USPS mail service.
I would welcome an opportunity to discuss these concerns further with you or your staff. Please feel free to reach out to me or my Chief of Staff Laura Marks at any time to schedule a meeting for additional discussion.
Sincerely,
Councilmember Charles Allen, Ward 6
Chairperson, Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety Co-Chairperson, Special Committee on COVID-19 Pandemic Recovery
cc: The Honorable Eleanor Holmes Norton
The Honorable Gary Peters, Chair, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
The Honorable Carolyn Maloney, Chair, House Committee on Oversight and Reform Postmaster General Louis DeJoy
Showing 2 reactions
Sign in with
Facebook TwitterBottom Line Up Front: The mail carriers here have been observed on their cell phones while placing mail in the boxes – clearly not paying attention and misdelivering the mail.
I live in a three-building apartment complex in SW. In the past seven years, I have averaged five or six letters misdelivered to me a month that were meant for either my apartment number but another building or the mailbox next to mine.
Of course, I ensure the correct recipient gets their mail. However, I have only had about five pieces over the past several years brought to me. It is reasonable to assume that the person who received my mail simply didn’t take the time to get it either to me or the concierge.