Postal service:

Late pension checks and delayed medications: Bay Area residents decry perceived mail slowdown.

The U.S. postmaster general’s retreat Tuesday from plans to drastically slash mail service throughout the country came just as complaints began mounting from people who hadn’t received medications or pension checks on time — and state attorneys general announced a nationwide lawsuit over the proposed changes.

Yet the reversal did little to quell anxiety and irritation in the Bay Area. Since Postmaster General Louis DeJoy took over the agency in June, he’s restricted overtime, removed collection boxes and mail processing machines, and limited workers’ ability to deliver latearriving mail.

Although representatives of the Postal Service and the American Postal Workers Union insisted in interviews that postal business is proceeding as usual in the Bay Area, residents and politicians say the mail has slowed to a glacial pace.

Customers who lined up in the main Berkeley post office Tuesday morning complained of packages getting marooned for weeks. An elderly couple in Walnut Creek said their medical insurance bill had arrived three days before it was due — held up by the worst mail disruption they had seen in 56 years. And postal workers gritted their teeth, whispering about five future clerk layoffs in the Walnut Creek office.

U.S. Postal Service spokesman Augustine Ruiz denied that any layoffs are planned, and told The Chronicle that the service hadn’t made any cuts “in regards to the acceptance, processing and the delivery of mail.”

But at post office branches throughout the region, people cited a long list of problems — from late bills to anguish over the November election.

Rep. Jackie Speier stood in front of the Belmont post office Tuesday with several retirees, veterans and Belmont Mayor Warren Lieberman to denounce the latest developments, saying they’ve already seen a significant decline in service on the Peninsula.

Noting that Benjamin Franklin founded what is now the U.S. Postal Service, Speier, DSan Mateo, said, “If he were alive today, he would say what I am saying — ‘Don’t Mess with the USPS.’ ”

She said the new postmaster general has been trying “to sabotage” the Postal Service for President Trump, and as a member of the House Oversight Committee, she will be grilling him on Monday when he appears before that panel.

“We have to be vigilant,” she said. “In many respects this is a lifeanddeath situation.”

Her news conference was one of several held throughout the Bay Area by congressional representatives Tuesday, and the theme in each was similar — asserting that there is a backslide in the mail system already, and directly contradicting the Postal Service’s argument that nothing is wrong.

Those standing alongside Speier to demand change included military veterans, retired people and several other customers who said they’re already fed up.

“I have definitely seen a slowdown,“said Leo McArdle, a Burlingame resident who was a U.S. Army sergeant from 1962 to 1970. He depends on the mail for key documents and medications from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“The mail used to come at 2 p.m., but lately (it’s) not until 6 p.m. or 7:30 at night,” McArdle said. “And I don’t know who the mail carrier is anymore; it always changes. I get medications in the mail, and they’re coming in double the time they used to.”

Richard Hedges of San Mateo said he has been shocked at the gaps in service.

“In the past two weeks I’ve had two days with no mail, and then the next day big bundles,” he said. “This is just not right.”

Cradling a bundle of mail at the Walnut Creek Post Office, customer Bobby Safikhani planned an unusual act of mildly political advocacy: He would buy $11 worth of stamps. Safikhani had heard that if others did the same, it might generate enough revenue to solve the post office’s problems.

The service has lost money for years. Democrats requested a $25 billion federal bailout, part of an aid package that’s caused wrangling among members of Congress and President Trump.

“I never thought buying $11 worth of stamps would be an act of protest, but that’s the times we’re in,” Safikhani said.

Ed Johnson shook his head in disgust as he ambled over to a mailbox outside the Walnut Creek post office, flipped the door open and dropped in a packet of letters.

“The guy who heads up the post office — will he do what the U.S. needs, or what Trump wants?” Johnson asked, referring to the president’s tirades against mail voting. The president has claimed, without evidence, that submitting ballots by mail encourages fraud.

Johnson’s wife, Marillyn Johnson, chimed in from the car, where she sat with the air conditioning cranked up to stave off the 90degree heat. She mentioned the couple’s medical insurance bill, which came far later than usual.

The Johnsons, both 84 years old, grew up with mail as a primary form of communication. Like other senior citizens, they rely on the Postal Service to pay bills, receive checks and keep in touch with loved ones. In an election warped by the global COVID19 pandemic, they will depend on a functional votebymail system. Neither Ed nor Marillyn Johnson can tolerate standing in a long line.

Al Ross, vice president of the American Postal Workers Union East Bay chapter, offered another possible explanation for delays in mail delivery. Branches are suffering labor shortages because of the pandemic. Many workers are calling in sick out of caution, even if they don’t wind up testing positive for COVID19.

Despite reports of restrictions on overtime nationally, the branches he represents have accelerated overtime to compensate for the lack of staff, Ross said.

“Right now we’re filing grievances based on (people) working more than 60 hours in a week,” he said, noting that COVID19 has also placed new burdens on the Postal Service, because more people are shopping from home.

Still, he maintained that none of the 50 cities his union chapter represents had cut their post office retail hours.

The cuts “haven’t impacted us as much as other areas,” Ross said.

Jason Lamb departed Berkeley’s main post office on Tuesday, carrying several boxes as he descended the stairs toward his bicycle. Lamb said he had noticed long lines at the post office this summer and only one window open to serve customers.

He hesitated to critique the service, out of respect for workers who seemed harried, with the line never abating Tuesday morning.

Others are piling on complaints. Speier said she’s received 3,000 calls from constituents over postal issues in the past week. That’s the highest call volume since Congress debated the Affordable Care Act.