Frustrated Gilmer county residents are searching for answers from the U.S. Postal Service on why they are experiencing dramatic mail delays and delivery issues.
People are pointing blame toward short staffing at the Ellijay Post Office and statewide issues tied to the distribution center in Palmetto.
A common concern involves how in many communities in the county, mail carriers do not drop off mail at people’s homes, but rather in cluster box units at a centralized delivery point.
Thomas Yeaw resides in the Big Buck Mountain community off Hwy. 282, where this is the case. He expressed his issues with how mail and packages are inconsistently delivered, reporting multiple items lost, misdirected or heavily delayed.
“There were a lot of days where I kept receiving other people’s mail in the community that was put in my mailbox by mistake,” Yeaw said.
A Social Security check for more than $20,000 was lost and took months for him to relocate, as well as an iPad he ordered from Amazon where he never received the key to open the larger mailbox for parcel deliveries.
“I’ve talked to a couple neighbors, and they’ve had similar problems,” he voiced. “I’ll go two, three days without any mail, and then all of a sudden I get 10-12 letters and different things all at one time stuffed in the mailbox.”
One of his neighbors told Yeaw that when they inquired at the post office about why they didn’t get an item delivered, the clerk said a disgruntled employee was sticking mail in any box that was open.
Coosawattee River Resort is another community that relies on cluster box units, where it took resident Gary Bauer weeks to get his mailbox assigned to him.
While waiting, he had to extend renting a P.O. box in East Ellijay, and is also experiencing delivery delays on important documents.
The process to get a mailbox in Coosawattee involves taking proof of home ownership to the 911 center, where residents need to get a confirmation letter from the sheriff. Then, they have to take those documents to the post office to get assigned a mailbox. The last step is taking that mailbox assignment to the Property Owners Association to get the key.
Bauer took his paperwork to the post office on Dec. 20, and didn’t get approved to receive a mailbox until Feb. 3. He was told that only one employee at the post office in Ellijay can process mailbox requests.
“They only have one person that could do that in that office, and that person is always out delivering mail because they’re short staffed,” Bauer explained. “Then, I started to just go back there every week to see what’s going on.”
Clerks explained to him that the post office refuses to teach another person how to process mailbox requests, despite having a stack 4 inches high of requests people are reluctantly waiting on.
“Everything was really easy to do, except the post office, and it was not the people’s fault,” he noted. “[The clerks] were like, ‘we would love to have overtime and we would do all this, but they won’t show us.’ Then I asked to talk to the [postmaster] who was supposed to call me back, but never did.”
The clerks said even the postmaster is out delivering mail, and doesn’t return to the office until late at night, according to Bauer.
On one of his visits to the post office in search of answers, he was recommended to send his USPS complaints to Sen. Jon Ossoff’s office in Atlanta. Ossoff has been demanding answers from the postmaster general for mail delays that Georgians have been experiencing.
“You fill out a form on [Sen. Ossoff’s website], but the bad thing about filling out that form is you have to mail it,” Bauer expressed with a laugh. “You can’t even email it, so why bother to do that?”
Ossoff’s latest efforts include grilling Postmaster General Louis DeJoy under oath in December, seeking solutions for the delays. Last month, he launched an inquiry after receiving reports from veterans that they weren’t getting their prescriptions and VA appointment notices delivered.
Delays have been an alarming trend across the state since the new Palmetto regional processing and distribution center opened in February of last year. It’s part of an effort to consolidate mail processing operations into larger regional hubs and handle increases in package volume.
The USPS Service Performance Dashboard shows that 65 percent of first-class mail was delivered on time in January across the 30540 zip code, which is below their target of 93 percent.
During this time last year, 83 percent of first-class mail was delivered on time, reflecting the decline in service since the new center opened. However, USPS notes that the winter storms could have impacted their performance this January.
When contacted, the Ellijay Post Office referred concerns to the USPS Strategic Communications Specialist for the entire state, Tiffany Rowland.
Rowland was unable to answer most of our questions about how the Ellijay Post Office operates, but did say local management is aware of the concerns regarding staffing and service from some customers.
“We are pleased to report that we have taken immediate steps to resolve the concerns of our customers,” she stated. “Local postal management addressed a temporary staffing issue, which has been resolved.”
Rowland went on to remind customers that if they need assistance with delivery, mailing or shipping, they should contact their post office, call 1-800-275-8777 or visit www.usps.com/help.
A spokesperson from Sen. Ossoff’s office said anyone experiencing mail delays can email their concerns to ossoff.senate.gov.
For residents like Bauer and Yeaw, noticeable improvements are needed for them to have confidence in USPS again.
“I don’t want anything to do with utilizing the Postal Service,” Yeaw proclaimed. “I have no trust in them whatsoever.”