Our 15-year-old son Noah is a baseball player. Baseball gear today can be quite expensive. A new (and sometimes even used!) quality bat or glove alone can easily cost several hundred dollars. For many years now, we’ve used Christmas and Noah’s birthday to provide him with a new bat or glove based on what he most wants or needs. If it’s not gift-giving time and Noah wants an expensive baseball item, he typically either waits or uses his own money (maybe with a little help from us) to purchase the item. If it’s the latter, Noah will often look for used gear. This was the case recently.
In February of this year, Noah found a used bat on Facebook
Marketplace that he wanted to purchase. The bat was just north of $100 with
taxes and fees. He used his own money to purchase the bat. The seller was in
our state (Georgia) but was several hours away, so we chose to have the bat
shipped. What a mistake!
The bat was scheduled to arrive on February 26. As of this
writing, now over five weeks later, the bat still has not arrived!
This would not be much of a story if ours was an isolated incident. This is far
from the case!
After filing a “missing mail search request” on March 1, a
few days later I began wondering if our package delay was indeed an isolated
incident. I began a simple internet search and quickly discovered that many
others in Georgia were also experiencing missing mail. I started seeing several
news stories of missing mail and problems with a new Atlanta area mail
distribution center in Palmetto, Georgia.
Much to their credit, the Atlanta NBC News affiliate,
11Alive News, has been all over this story since early March. As far as I can
tell, their first
report on this story was on March 6. This initial report declares,
Some metro
Atlanta residents are looking for their mail, but there's one big problem -- it's
either late or, worse, not showing up at all.
These postal
customers are also complaining that their packages can't be traced at all. They
said these issues are centered around one postal facility in Palmetto -- which
is located mostly in Fulton County [Another government debacle in Fulton
County!] but also partly in Coweta County.
From
paychecks and legal documents to mail of all types, customers from Lithia
Springs, Kennesaw, Marietta, and other cities reached out to 11Alive about
their mail being delayed, but there still aren't any answers as to why.
Weeks, and dozens
of news stories, later (Atlanta-area FOX
and ABC
affiliates have also reported on this problem) and little has changed. A March
21 11Alive news story gave a comprehensive update on “What
we know so far about the Palmetto USPS mail delays.” The story begins, “11Alive
has received non-stop overwhelming concerns from those experiencing delays
about their missing mail over the past couple of weeks.” On “why is the mail
delayed,” 11Alive reports that they have “reached out to the United States
Postal Service about what is causing the delays” but 11Alive “has not received
a definitive reason.”
Additionally, the Palmetto distribution center, and the USPS
in general, is being very evasive or vague on what is being done—if anything—to
fix the problem. Not very much (If anything!) as far as we are concerned, since
we are going on six weeks without our package!
Several elected officials in Georgia are demanding answers
as well, but it seems they are also yet to get results. On March 14, U.S.
Senator Jon Ossoff released a statement on the matter. Senator Ossoff’s
statement declared,
Sen. Ossoff today launched an inquiry with USPS Postmaster General
Louis DeJoy to provide detailed answers and explanation amid growing reports of
missing and delayed mail processed through the Atlanta Regional Processing and
Distribution Center — impacting families’ ability to get life-saving medicine
and vital mail services.
On March 21 it
was announced that Sen. Ossoff, along with Georgia’s other U.S. Senator,
Raphael Warnock and U.S. Congressman Barry Loudermilk (GA-11), had launched a “bipartisan
inquiry with USPS Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to provide a detailed
explanation for alleged fraud at the Marietta Post Office last year.” The
announcement also declared that, “According
to the Marietta Daily Journal, alleged crimes committed at the post
office include mail theft, forgery, document fraud, and check-washing.”
One wonders if similar issues aren’t occurring at the
Palmetto facility as well. Senator Warnock and U.S. Congressman Mike Collins
(GA-10) have also officially inquired about the issues at the Palmetto facility
but are also getting no answers as to what is the problem and what is being
done to resolve it. About a week ago, a FOX5 (the Atlanta affiliate) headline
declared, “Even Congress can’t get answers on Georgia post office
problems.”
Today (April 4) Congressman Andrew Clyde (GA-09) requested
an audit and an investigation into the USPS’s “recent consolidation process in
North Georgia.” Congressman Clyde’s request states,
Since the transition and
consolidation of processing and distribution activities from local PDCs across
North Georgia into the Palmetto facility on February 24, 2024, my office has
received a nearly 90% increase in email and phone call messages
from residents of North Georgia about USPS mail and package delays happening in
the region.
The “consolidation process” mentioned by Congressman Clyde (and
by several others dealing with this matter) is evidently
part of USPS’s 10-year plan, introduced in 2021, called “Delivering for
America.” The Palmetto facility, which opened on February 24 of this year,
consolidated Atlanta,
Augusta, Macon and Duluth area processing and distribution centers. Atlanta was
not the first area of the U.S. to experience this type of postal “consolidation”
disaster.
Again, according to 11Alive News,
Atlanta is not the first area to experience
disruption following the opening of this kind of facility. They are a
centerpiece of a system-wide modernization drive within the USPS, and the first
one the agency opened was in Richmond [Virginia] last year.
An audit of the metro Atlanta facility began in
March, but a report won't be released until August. The report on Richmond,
however, was released on Monday and gives some insights on the uneven results
that followed its opening.
The report on the Richmond USPS issues can be found in the
link above. It details very similar mail disruptions to what are currently
happening in Georgia. In other words, the USPS should’ve learned its
lesson in Virginia! But alas, the reputation of the USPS continues to
worsen. Things for the Postal Service could get even worse if
what has happened in Virginia and Georgia comes to your state, which is likely
unless significant changes are made in these “consolidation” efforts.
When our mail was delivered today (April 4), for the first
time—I’m not usually home when the mail is delivered—I got to speak with our
mail carrier about our missing package. I informed her how long it’s been and
so on. She pointed to the issues with the Palmetto facility, but she added that
she was told that the area where we live was “caught up” on missing mail from
the Palmetto facility. I assured her this was not the case. She told me she’s
hearing the same from other postal customers.
How about instead of “consolidation” we just turn over mail
operations in the U.S. to Amazon. They seem to be much better at delivering
packages! What’s more, I’d wager the amount my son has lost on his package that
Amazon could resolve whatever is the issue in Palmetto in a matter of days. Shame
on the USPS for this debacle!
(See this column at American Thinker.)
Copyright 2024, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle
and Magnificence of America
trevorgrantthomas@gmail.com
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