Ossoff turns up heat on postmaster general over delays in service

The U.S. Postal Service is providing on-time delivery of first-class mail in the Atlanta area only 36% of the time.

That nugget came this past week during testimony before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

For weeks, mail has been moving slowly at the new Atlanta Regional Processing and Distribution Center in Palmetto. The delays have left customers exasperated. They also didn’t do much for the demeanor of U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff as he questioned Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, telling him that he has “weeks, not months, to fix this.”

“I have constituents with prescriptions that aren’t being delivered,” Ossoff said. “I’ve got constituents who can’t pay their rent and their mortgages. I’ve got businesses who aren’t able to ship products or receive supplies.”

DeJoy said the problems are rooted in the Postal Service’s outdated infrastructure and processes caused by chronic underfunding, saying pursuit of its “long-term viability should have begun over a decade earlier.”

Ossoff pushed back.

“Do you think that one of your private-sector competitors would have rolled out a new system that would reduce on-time delivery to 36% and then say it’s going to take months to fix it? ... I wrote you on March 14. Did you get my letter?” Ossoff asked DeJoy.

DeJoy said he had not read Ossoff’s letter. That didn’t sit well with the senator.

“You should personally read letters from members of the U.S. Senate committee that oversees your operations,” he told DeJoy, “particularly where you are failing abysmally to fulfill your core mission.”