LAT: Postal Officials Say They'll Sort Out Delivery Problems (in LA)

[question everything]

From the Los Angeles Times

Postal Officials Say They'll Sort Out Delivery Problems
By Martha Groves
Times Staff Writer

January 14, 2006

As customer complaints about late mail service continued Friday, local postal officials pledged a new campaign to improve delivery times across Los Angeles County.

Officials acknowledged serious problems even as more complaints piled up about mail that is delivered late at night, magazines and newspapers that arrive months after publication, and mail that is dropped off miles from its intended destination. But despite the new promise to improve service, officials still offered no clear explanation for what was causing the delays. Rather, it appears that several factors might be to blame.

Letter carriers have complained for months that the U.S. Postal Service's automated mail-sorting system has forced them to begin their deliveries later, meaning that letters and packages often are dropped off late in the evening, as late as 11 p.m. in some areas.

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By many accounts, the region's delivery delays and glitches became widely apparent after the postal service closed a large processing center near Marina del Rey last summer, forcing most of the mail from the region's western portions to be sorted through the main Los Angeles Processing and Distribution Center in South Los Angeles. From there it must be trucked back through often busy traffic to outlying communities. The Postal Service has also suggested that staffing shortages and even the effects of Hurricane Katrina are to blame.

Whatever the reasons, top postal authorities have now promised to adjust staffing and move up starting times for some carriers so they can hit the streets earlier. The officials also said they have been training additional supervisors and managers who will be shifted to locations that have experienced delivery problems. And they said a new processing facility in Santa Monica, set to open soon, should ease problems there.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mail14jan14,0,28667.story?coll=la-headlines-california

[JDPriestly]

1. We have had terrible mail service (in LA). It's unbelievable.

Call your congressman. You'll get action. We did.