BY EMILY MIBACH
Daily Post Staff Writer
After putting up notices saying that some blue mailboxes in south Palo Alto were going to be removed, the United States Postal Service backtracked yesterday (Friday, Aug. 14) after The Post began asking questions.
South Palo Alto resident and retired judge LaDoris Cordell sent the Post a photo late Thursday with a notice posted on her neighborhood’s blue mailbox at Tennessee Lane and Park Boulevard, and another near the Goodwill at El Camino Way and West Meadow Drive.
“All of a sudden the mail volume is so low that they are shutting down our mailboxes just 80 days before the election?” Cordell wrote in her email to The Post, suggesting that the boxes may be removed in an attempt to suppress voters.
USPS spokesman Augustine Ruiz said that the blue mailboxes are often removed for lack of use and then installed in areas that are growing.
“It has absolutely nothing to do with someone’s unsubstantiated fear that it has anything to do with voter suppression,” Ruiz wrote in an email to the Post.
The Post sent an email to Ruiz around 10:45 a.m. yesterday asking about the removal of the boxes. At 3:30 p.m., Ruiz sent an email to The Post stating: “We are suspending the removal of collection boxes at this time. All postings on collection boxes will be removed, as we will no longer be pulling any boxes.”
This means that residents in south Palo Alto, or anywhere else where similar notices have popped up, do not have to worry about their mailbox being removed.
‘Stunning, terrifying’
Cordell was relieved that her neighborhood mailbox wasn’t going away, but is still worried that the USPS was planning to take away mailboxes.
“It’s stunning and terrifying,” Cordell said.
Such notices have been posted across the country, with some boxes already having been removed in Oregon, New York, Montana and Indiana.
CNN reported last night that the Post Office had decided to stop the removal of mailboxes until after the election, but the list provided to that outlet did not include California.
Public demand a factor in box removal
Ruiz explained that the Post Office does periodic checks on mailboxes to see how much they are used, if a mailbox has less than 25 pieces of mail deposited into the box daily, then it may be slated for removal.
However, if a certain mailbox is the only means for sending a letter in a “neighborhood, business center or senior citizen complex,” as Ruiz put it, then the Post Office could decide to keep the mailbox there.
Ruiz also noted that when a mailbox gets consistently low mail for months on end, it costs the Post Office money in fuel and workhours for letter carriers to drive to the mailbox and get the mail.
“Removing the box is simply good business sense in that respect,” Ruiz said.
Recently, new U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy called the Post Service’s financial situation “dire,” with the postal service anticipating a $21 billion loss for the fiscal year that ends Oct. 1, according to a report by Fortune. DeJoy has accepted a $10 billion loan from the federal treasury.
” when a mailbox gets consistently low mail for months on end, it costs the Post Office money in fuel and workhours for letter carriers to drive to the mailbox and get the mail…Removing the box is simply good business sense in that respect”
Nonsense. And it is easy to establish why that is complete nonsense.
First, if indeed there was a drop in usage of those boxes “for months on end”, why are those boxes being removed now? not earlier? or, not after (the elections)? why this heightened sense of urgency to remove them now, in the middle of a pandemic and on the eve of a very important election that has very significant implications for this country? why now when it is all but certain many voters are going to want to mail in their ballots owing to the pandemic and it is very clear one party and its leader want to suppress as many of those mailed in ballots?
Mr Ruiz’s “explanation” seems too manufactured and all too convenient…and a travesty. As with other matters political these days.
Is there any way we the people can do something to boot Mr Ruiz from his role–whatever it be–at the USPS? and to signal to his peers and colleagues we will not stand for their acting as agents of Agent Orange and his band of scoundrels?
“USPS spokesman Augustine Ruiz said that the blue mailboxes are often removed for lack of use and then installed in areas that are growing.”
What evidence can the USPS produce to show “blue mailboxes were often removed for lack of use”? what number of boxes were removed for that reason? how were their usage (or lack of) tracked? And what is the rate of the USPS installing those boxes in areas that are “growing”? how did they track such growth?
Lastly, with the ongoing pandemic, what area if any has demonstrated “growth” in mailbox usage?
The answers to these questions are all too self-evident. They confirm the corruption and perversion of independent American civil institutions to serve political agendas is now far worse than we understood. What a nightmare!
Little used mailboxes have been removed over the last several years due to the cost of wasted trips to retrieve non-existent mail. It’s ludicrous to think people wouldn’t look for another mailbox if the one they were used to wasn’t there.
This fake scandal over the Post Office is a Godsend for the Democrats. They tried for two years to remove Trump with the Russian hoax. That backfired. Then they went after him on Ukraine. But it was then we found out about the million-dollar-a-year job Joe Biden’s son got with the Ukrainian gas company. So that one backfired. Then they locked down the country with the hopes of destroying the economy. Still Trump is moving up in the polls. So this Post Office scandal is the last thing they’ve got left. It’s going to backfire too.
Agree completely!
If you’re a supporter of all-mail voting because of Covid, how are these voters who are so afraid of polling precincts able to go to the grocery store?
Why doesn’t the Post Office clean up there office on Hamilton. The building looks abandoned…overgrown. Maybe the City should clean it up.
“If you’re a supporter of all-mail voting…”
Nobody is arguing (yet) for all-mail voting. So your argument is nothing but a red herring, like those of Agent Orange, meant to distract and not address the real issue.
Now, we MAY end up with all-mail voting if the pandemic worsens owing to the current regime’s (pick your choice) ineptitude, malice, etc.
What we Americans deserve and require is the ability to vote via mail as has been the norm the past many elections. That ability is being actively curtailed by the current regime which the Daily Post has reported above.
“… how are these voters who are so afraid of polling precincts able to go to the grocery store?”
There are several voters who are NOT going to grocery stores and haven’t been to one the past several months. And if the pandemic worsens it would mean even more of us would be limited in what we can do. None of that should take away our right to vote via mail.
Perhaps you were born of Immaculate Conception and don’t have elderly members (voters too) in your family. Your ignorance can’t mean others more vulnerable to the pandemic have to take risks with their health.
Enough said. It appears Trump’s fanboys and fangirls would resort to any reasoning, however self-serving, to explain away their leader’s and their regime’s perversions and subverting of the law and civil, independent institutions. In that they are destroying America even as they purport to making it “Great Again.”
“Nonsense” is a fount of misinformation. He ought to read AB860, which Newsom signed into law in June. It requires the state to send a ballot to every registered voter. It also closes your neighborhood polling place. Sure, there will be a couple of “vote centers” in county buildings for people to turn in ballots, but no more in-person voting the traditional way.
Nonsense, here’s a tip — before you begin bashing people for their politics, get your facts straight.
Speaking about red herrings, Nonsense, nobody is saying that people shouldn’t be able to get an absentee ballot if they wish to avoid a polling precinct. Absentee ballots have always been an option for people, even the ones who you say aren’t going to grocery stores anymore. The issue is this: Is it wise to mail everyone a ballot, whether they request one or not?
“…the United States Postal Service backtracked yesterday (Friday, Aug. 14) after The Post began asking questions”
That backtracking turned into a complete reversal.
The Postmaster General has suspended all “cost-cutting moves” until November.
Kudos to The Post for asking questions and reporting on this matter!
So that’s why they closed the churches and schools, because that’s where people traditionally go to vote.
If any good news comes out of this whole mess, the economy and everything else will open if Biden wins.