‘It’s our intent to hold his feet to the fire,’ Senator Warner says about USPS Postmaster addressing mail issues

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - State leaders are pushing United States Postal Service Postmaster General Louis Dejoy to address mail issues that continue to plague our area.

U.S. Virginia Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, along with other lawmakers, met with Dejoy to understand what’s going on.

“The Postmaster General agreed that the rollout in Richmond was a disaster. It was a mess, and it needs to be corrected,” Senator Warner said.

Virginia Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine say they’re holding Dejoy responsible for the ongoing mail delivery delays in Virginia.

“[Dejoy] said, ‘we did choose Richmond to be the lead of this innovation, which we still believe is going to be an important and productive innovation for the way we distribute mail and packages, but we completely botched the implementation,’” Kaine said.

Kaine says Dejoy apologized for all of the issues and had a lot to say.

According to Kaine, the Postmaster said, “We didn’t incorporate the staff and management enough in the change. We didn’t match the distribution changes with transportation changes to the degree that we should, and we have experienced some significant declines in employment and workforce issues that have compounded the problem.”

According to the Postmaster, things are looking up.

“He also pointed out that in the last month or so the on-time rate of mail delivery from that facility throughout its region has improved not yet sufficiently,” Kaine said.

”We have seen some recovery,” Warner said, “It’s still not where it needs to be folks in the Richmond region, and need to be able to know that if they mail something, it will be delivered on time.”

Plans are being made to create improvements.

“It’s our intent to hold his feet to the fire, though we’re going to meet meeting with him, again in 60 days. What I found in the past, is [that] this is going to require constant attention from the congressional delegation,” Warner added.

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