Delays Envelop Mail Delivery

It appears The Georgetowner is not alone in facing an increasingly disturbing experience. Our mail is coming later and later in the day (a pretty untenable reality for a newspaper).

Now it seems, individual households in Georgetown are beginning to voice the same concern. An O Street resident related that her mail sometimes arrived as late as 6:30
p.m. Then, on Dec. 7, she received no mail at all. When she asked her carrier about it the next day, the carrier said she had been ill and there had been no replacement for her. Other Georgetowners have complained of receiving November publications in December.

“This is the worst I have seen in over 50 years of residence at our N Street address,” Ed Emes wrote in a Dec. 7 email. The following day, Joan Kennan asked: “What is happening to our postal service?”

This isn’t just a local problem. In a letter last week to Postmaster General Megan J. Brennan, Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana) expressed his “great concern about the United States Postal Service Inspector General (OIG) audit report finding that the U.S. Postal Service has been inaccurately reporting delayed mail.” The report found that more than two billion pieces of mail had been delayed in one year and that delayed mail was being significantly underreported at several processing and distribution centers.

To improve on-time delivery, there is an obvious need for more investigation, training and supervision. We understand that during the December rush — and given the increased volume generated by internet sales — it is harder to deliver mail at scheduled times. We’re ready to give the postal service a Christmas break. But the problems of late delivery, so disruptive to businesses and households, have been with us for months if not years. We will be watching and doing a follow-up in 2018.