With ‘great frustration,’ Craig asks postal service to improve service

U.S. Rep. Angie Craig has written to U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy asking him to improve mail service in Minnesota’s Second Congressional District, which includes New Prague.

Craig contends constituents in her district have reported weeks-long delays in receiving mail and spotty, inconsistent mail delivery. Craig released a letter she wrote to DeJoy Monday, Dec. 30, urging him to take action to address poor mail service in several communities in the district. In her letter, she highlighted the critical need to improve the post offices’ service levels – and the impacts these conditions are having on residents.

“I write to you today with great frustration regarding the state of mail delivery service across the Second Congressional District of Minnesota. My constituents have reported to me that they regularly go three to four days without receiving their mail; some have told me they haven’t received mail since Dec. 16, 2022 – now two weeks ago,” she wrote. “I’ve been told by local postal officials that a route would never go unserved for more than one day at a time, but it’s clear that is simply not the case.”

Craig reminded DeJoy she had addressed “poor delivery service” in a letter she wrote Nov. 5. In a call Dec. 8 with a relevant USPS official for Minnesota, she said reported “the poor delivery service has continued not just in Lakeville, but across the second district. Short-staffing and increased holiday shipping volumes are understandable, but are beginning to sound like excuses. This no longer seems to be isolated to neighborhoods or even individual cities, but rather a larger issue across Minnesota,” Craig included in her letter to DeJoy.

Rep. Craig encourages her constituents to contact her office if they are having any trouble navigating or accessing any federal agency, including their local post offices. For assistance, they should visit Rep. Craig’s website at https://craig. house.gov/casework.

“The United States Postal Service’s creed reads, ‘Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night,’ and yet seniors and veterans are going without medication, businesses are missing payments and families are not receiving packages from loved ones during the holiday season,” Craig wrote in her letter to the postmaster general. “This is entirely unacceptable.”

Craig said her constituents deserve answers and requests DeJoy respond to the following questions: • For each post office in the second district, since Dec. 16, 2022, how many routes at each location went unserved and which day? • For each post office in the district, what are the current staffing shortages and how quickly will USPS be able to be fully staffed? • Which post offices in the second district have had to deliver ‘package-only’ routes, which requires flats to go undelivered, and on which days? • What power does the U.S. Postal Service hold to ‘surge’ employees to necessary routes, and how can the hiring process be expedited to make the necessary deliveries on time? • How many packages, as of this letter, remain undelivered at each post office in the Second District?