Nearly 100 people attended Saturday's town hall meeting where U.S. Rep. Donald McEachin and his staff fielded questions and complaints alongside Richmond-based U.S. Postal Service staff. (Photo by Sarah King)
Donna Royster knew she was expecting a $6,000 check from her daughter — a naval officer stationed in Hawaii — in the mail, but Royster never got her check, even though Oliver Crossing, the East End apartment complex where she lives, has lock boxes requiring a key to retrieve post. When she called to ask about it, she was informed the check had already been cashed.
The news came more as a disappointment than a surprise. Royster says that for some time now, she and her neighbors have struggled with lost and stolen mail, in part, she says, because the mail boxes are left open, or in some cases, postal workers will unlock them for people who do not live at Oliver Crossing anymore.
“What I’ve got a problem with is the older people,” Royster says, holding her hands apart about 12 inches to demonstrate the stack of mail she pulled out of a trashcan to give to her elderly, disabled neighbor. “I mean literally the stack of mail for Ms. Vicky was in the garbage — things like Social Security, her bank statements.
“I feel very strongly about this, like if we have a key to the mailbox — I don’t care if [the postal worker] sees the address [on your license], you should not be able to get that mail without the key,” Royster continues. “I really feel that way, I mean, it’s identity theft — it’s so scary.”
Royster’s experience was just one of the many grievances residents expressed regarding mail service in the East End at a town hall forum hosted by U.S. Rep. Donald McEachin (D-4th District) at the Robinson Theatre in Church Hill on Saturday.
Nearly 100 people showed up for the 10:30 a.m. event where McEachin and his staff fielded questions and complaints alongside Richmond U.S. Postal Service staff, including Marketing Director Ben Farmer, District Manager Janice Atherly and District Communications Coordinator Fran Kipper, for more than the scheduled hour. The partial shutdown of the federal government, which entered its 22nd day on Saturday, does not affect the U.S. Postal Service.
Shortly before 11 a.m., the line of people waiting to share their thoughts had snaked through the crowd and around the side of the auditorium; their grievances spanned the gamut: receiving mail informing residents to report for jury duty after the scheduled date; learning bills had gone into collections after not receiving initial warning letters; health coverage being terminated because the necessary marketplace correspondence was not received; Social Security and other forms of monthly pay — particularly for the elderly and disabled — going missing; communications from the Internal Revenue Service being found down the street; neighbors collecting mail discarded in alleys and streets and, in one case, a scheduled prescription medication for a neighbor left in someone else’s front yard (the Richmond Police Department was called to collect it); the list goes on.
“It was all concerning,” McEachin said of the grievances expressed at the town hall. “We need our post office to be the best post office it can be — obviously there’s going to be mistakes, but the mistakes shouldn’t be at this level, or this voluminous.”
For more than a year, McEachin and his staff have worked to alleviate some of the postal service issues residents in the East End are facing, dating back to the unexpected temporary closure of the post office at 414 N 25th St. in Church Hill due to facility maintenance repairs. In April, McEachin wrote a letter to Postmaster General Megan Brennan asking for a solidified timeline, after being informed the location was to reopen in late 2017. In late May, the office did reopen — but not without some significant hitches.
“So far [USPS has] been responsive, but what we need is for this to be resolved,” McEachin said. “At the last meeting [we had with them], they stated they were actually unaware of the problems, so we actually, literally printed off from the [Church Hill Neighborhood] Facebook page and showed them all the complaints; we showed them some other complaints, too, and we told them we were going to have this [event] and I think they learned something today.”
Christina McGuire, who lives on the 2300 block of East Grace Street, was one of the last individuals to take to the mic at the town hall. She had two pieces of paper with her: One was a $300 late charge from Prince William County that McGuire says was for a property bill she never received in the first place. The second was somebody else’s mail.
“I assume other people are getting my mail, because I’m getting their mail,” McGuire said. “I don’t mind delivering to my neighbors; I don’t mind delivering to Broad Street; I don’t mind delivering to West Grace Street — but I am not going to deliver to Sandston — I am too old to be a mail carrier.”
Her comment drew laughs from the attendees, but McGuire hardly paused to let the comment sink in before continuing:
“I’m holding in my hand — this is the second one I’ve gotten for Sandston — this is from the U.S. Department of Education and somebody in Sandston is going to be harmed if they don’t get this letter,” McGuire said emphatically. “Last week, I got another one for Sandston — it was somebody’s bank statement. This is wrong. If I were a different kind of person, I could’ve had all their banking information.”
McEachin, who previously practiced as a personal injury attorney, nodded occasionally as he listened. When McGuire explained her grievances, his eyes grew wide, as they had when Royster talked about her missing $6,000 check.
“There’s people sitting on the other side of the mailboxes, taking other people’s mail out of the boxes,” Royster said, adding that in response. she and other neighbors have been “racing down there to greet the mailman,” and return the mail in some cases to the correct box.
“But then we found out the people who are real bad — they’ll show the ID to the mailman and the thing about that is if you’ve moved and haven’t changed your license, the mailman looks at the license and says ‘OK you live there and will give you the mail,’ ” Royster explained. “That has happened to me five different times and I finally caught the girl and I’m not gonna lie to you — I almost beat the hell out of her.”
Royster continued, “My grandchildren live in Hawaii — they’ve been there six months now — I haven’t gotten one piece of mail from my grandchildren; not one. They call me and say things like, ‘Grammy did you get my picture? Did you get the pictures I sent? Did you get the handmade birthday cards we sent? The birthday cake?’ No cards, no birthday cake, no nothing — I live by myself and it’s sad because I try to tell the mailman …” her voice trails off as she chokes up. Perhaps most egregious, though, was the $6,000 check from her daughter in Hawaii that Royster never received.
“Somebody took it out of my mailbox and cashed it,” she said indignantly, “because when I called to cancel it they said, ‘Oh, but it was cashed,’ you know?”
In early December, McEachin wrote a letter to Postmaster Joseph Thekkekara at the 1801 Brook Road post office, outlining the urgency and need to address some of the grievances expressed at the town hall on Saturday.
“In this day and age, many customers receive life necessities, from clothing to medication to critical documents to household goods, through the United States Postal Service,” McEachin said in his Dec. 3 letter. “I appreciate the extra burden this puts on both post offices and carriers, but Americans need to be able to depend on their mail being delivered in a timely, accurate fashion to their mailboxes or to a designated alternative.“
Then, on Dec. 18, one day after meeting with Thekkekara, McEachin penned another letter. This one was more pointed:
“I was very concerned to hear that you were unaware of the myriad concerns expressed repeatedly by constituents about their mail delivery or lack thereof,” McEachin wrote in his Dec. 18 letter, noting that he would be hosting the town hall at a later date.
In the letter, McEachin referred to a plan they’d determined to “ensure better communication, so my constituents’ mail issues will be addressed.” That plan entailed assigning a caseworker from McEachin’s office to a weekly call with Kipper to “exchange information and updates” as well as assigning Farmer to subscribe to the Church Hill People’s News website to “keep abreast of issues raised there” and that Farmer would advertise a number that customers could use to submit complaints.
Customer service was another issue brought up on Saturday. McGuire, for example, told the crowd about how she doesn’t try going to the Brook Road post office anymore to speak with someone face-to-face about these issues, particularly after one instance when she stood in line for four hours but the office closed before she could talk to anyone.
“I’ve stood in line there and been closed on standing four or five hours waiting to talk to somebody,” McGuire recounted. “I’ve been told to go online, but I don’t want to go online — I need to talk to somebody about this. ... I now have this mail — maybe it’s a grant to go to school or something — where do I go to take this mail?” she asked, waving the letter from the Department of Education in the air.
Farmer, the USPS marketing director, quickly rose from his seat to take the letter.
“Thank you very much for being here, but I am fed up,” McGuire told Farmer as he took the letter from her.
Others in attendance at the town hall included Richmond City Council President Cynthia Newbille, who represents the 7th District, as well as some postal workers.
USPS worker Georgina Griffin took to the mic to explain she had come out to the event on her day off with her two daughters to hear the issues customers are facing in the area.
“For me, I take pride in what I do,” Griffin began, noting that she has been employed with postal service for 13 years and recently transferred to Richmond from Florida.
“On my route, they love me — they’re like ‘oh my gosh,’ no matter what time I get there — but unfortunately we do not have a set time for when the mail comes because of the volume — sometimes you have to take on two routes if somebody didn’t come to work — people do make mistakes,” Griffin said, before adding context and addressing some of the comments she’d heard from customers on Saturday.
“I know the young lady was saying about people opening the mail box — that’s a no-no; if somebody tries to get your mail [at the apartment complex on my route, I’m] like ‘No, i don’t know you. Get a key,’” Griffin said to applause from the audience. “It’s a lot of issues we may not be able to fix today, but I really am listening to you guys and I will be telling your carriers come Monday that, ‘You guys gotta be careful with what you’re doing; take your time, make sure you’re looking at the mail; get to know your customers,’” Griffin said. “I’m going to let my carriers know, ‘Take pride in what you do’ — I carry each package like it’s somebody’s wedding dress.”
On Saturday, McEachin elaborated further on steps his office took to correct the postal issues.
“One of the things we learned at our last meeting with the post office is that they were unaware of these complaints so we wanted to put the complaints front and center for them and I think this did it,” McEachin said, “The main focus of today was to give my constituents an opportunity to have their grievances heard — it’ll be a success if the problems are solved.”
As for next steps, the congressman said residents can expect an update from his office within the next month.
“It’s gratifying when my staff works so hard to put together a meeting like this and [residents] actually come out and respond,” McEachin said. “That’s what we’re supposed to do — to try to make government work — to bring different aspects of the federal government to our constituents. That’s the best part of being a representative, is to try to make government work for people, and we’ll see how successful we’ve been.”