With growing complaints of late deliveries, the United States Postal Service's (USPS) nickname "snail mail" may be a bit too generous.
U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Haleyville) has recently called on the USPS to address issues with significantly slow shipments. His office has received over 100 complaints since 2020, with some of the more egregious examples reported in the last few weeks.
"I've received another complaint about mail showing up almost a month after it was put into the mail. What are you doing to address this, [USPS]?" Aderholt posted to X. "Our inquiries directly with your Congressional liaisons continue to go unanswered. You can and must do better."
Former candidate for Alabama's House District 27 Alan Miller said mailers his campaign sent out to encourage his constituents to vote for him in the April 30 primary special election runoff finally arrived in Arab mailboxes weeks after the polls closed, and his opponent already won the seat.
Having experienced issues with late deliveries of mailers sent out for the primary vote on April 2, Miller said he was "adamant" that the ones for the runoff go to the post office even earlier to make up for any extra lag time.
"Some of them literally arrived within the last three days," Miller told 1819 News in a phone interview Tuesday. "... It's really ridiculous. You can imagine I'm upset because those cost a lot of money. So that's a big enough concern. But on top of that, it's just embarrassing. It reflects poorly on me… I expect a refund of some sort."
Miller's campaign manager, Jaxon Phillips, said he was investigating the issue to determine what exactly went wrong with the delivery.
"The printer got it out in time like she always does," He said. "...Somewhere between there and the mailboxes, something happened."
Phillips said political mail sometimes gets "special treatment" that could add to the usual delivery time, but he believed there may have been a deeper issue at the USPS distribution center in Birmingham.
"It's unfortunate, it's aggravating, embarrassing and a bunch of other things, but with the way the USPS has shifted, it's hard to tell whose fault it is. But we narrowed it down to USPS. It's something they screwed up," he said.
The Arab Tribune, the local paper in Miller's hometown, has been experiencing issues with late deliveries for years, according to publisher Charles Whisenant. He said it's gotten so bad that the USPS may cause the "death" of the newspaper industry.
"The biggest problem we've had over the last few years is people just not getting their paper," he said. "When they call us wanting to know if they sent it to them, and, of course, we did, it's almost always followed by, 'Well, I figured it was the post office because they never deliver my other mail either.'"
"It's just pitiful right now and has been for a couple of years," he added. "They are a major contributing factor to the death of small weekly papers. You mark my words; the post office is going to end up being responsible, along with Facebook, for killing small, weekly papers. They just are if they don't get their act together."
Whisenant said his efforts to work with the local post office to try and fix the problem have been ignored.
"It's not just me. It's all local papers are having the same problem," he said. "To hell with rain, sleet and snow; they can't even get it right in sunny weather."
Whisenant said he was the one who asked Aderholt to address the issue.
"To his credit, Aderholt has been real good," he said. "I applaud his response. I just wonder how much good it'll do."
When asked by 1819 News to respond to Aderholt's comments and the allegations of significant delays, Debra Jean Fetterly, USPS spokesperson for the Alabama-Mississippi District, sent the following statement:
"A dedicated postal workforce processes and delivers mail and packages 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year at plants and post offices throughout Alabama. Our goal is to provide the best possible service and we apologize to any customers who may have experienced issues with their mail or packages. Postal leadership reports that all mail and packages in the Birmingham area and across the state of Alabama are being processed and delivered as soon as they are received. Additionally, we continue to maintain regular communications with elected officials, including Congressional Members, through the appropriate liaisons in Alabama and in Washington, D.C. We want to remind customers that when a service issue arises, we want to know about it so we may focus our attention on a resolution. We ask that our customers contact their local Post Office, visit our website at Contact Us | USPS, or call our Customer Care Center at 1-800-ASK-USPS® (1-800-275-8777)."
To connect with the story's author or comment, email daniel.taylor@1819news.com or find him on Twitter and Facebook.
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