Lawmakers demand meeting on Mass. postal service woes

BOSTON (SHNS) – Citing office closures, deteriorating service, and unresponsive administrators, members of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation are newly appealing to meet with the U.S. Postal Service’s regional manager.

In a letter released on Friday , U.S. Sen. Edward Markey and other elected officials mentioned closures of the Medway Main Street Post Office and the Watertown Square Post Office, “the lack of response to faltering service at the Roxbury and Somerville Post Offices, and the recent proposal to slow rural mail delivery and consolidate postal operations.”

“Our constituents are facing diminished access to post office retail fronts, increasingly delayed and lost mail, and, for those employed by USPS, workplace dissatisfaction,” the federal lawmakers wrote, asserting that the situation is “highly problematic and indicative of a larger statewide problem.”

In Boston, 84 Roxbury residents wrote to the lawmakers in April to describe having to wait 30 to 45 minutes for service and experiencing mail delays of two to four weeks, as well as lost and misdelivered mail, the lawmakers said. They added that the postal service denied a request for a meeting about severe service problems reported by residents of Somerville.

While describing an unresponsive bureaucracy and urgent problems, the legislators asked for an in-person meeting with Massachusetts-Rhode Island District Manager Scott Manier to learn more and asked for a response to their letter by Sept. 30, one month from today.

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