WASHINGTON – Four Missouri U.S. Representatives are calling for the United States Postal Service to investigate rural mail delays and audit the St. Louis area’s sorting and distribution center in Hazelwood.
Republican Congress leaders Sam Graves, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Jason Smith and Ann Wagner sent a joint letter to U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Wednesday calling for action.
Over the past year, FOX 2 has learned that some St. Louis-area residents not receiving essential documents, like utility bills and social security checks, in the mail or did not receive them weeks after key due dates. Others have had issues with packages intended for local addresses taking a cross-country detour before reaching their final destination near St. Louis.
The four lawmakers say delays have posed recent challenges to rural Missourians.
“The rural mail crisis is taking a major toll on the quality of life in communities across southeast and south-central Missouri,” said Smith via a news release. “Seniors are struggling to make ends meet because Social Security checks aren’t arriving on time. Veterans aren’t receiving the benefits they earned for their selfless service to our nation. Small businesses are fearing that they’ll have to close their doors for good because packages for, and payments from, customers are getting lost in the mail.”
In addition to an audit of the Hazelwood sorting and distribution Center, the letter requests USPS outline its plans to prevent further delays in rural deliveries, including for potential election documents.
“The bottom line is that our constituents depend on USPS and cannot afford these continued failures,” the letter reads, in part. “Submitting a plan to further delay mail deliveries for rural Americans while continuing to increase postage rates because USPS leadership cannot effectively run their operation is totally unacceptable. Quite simply, Americans don’t want to pay more for worse service.”
Missouri U.S Rep. Cori Bush and U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley have previously pushed the U.S. Postal Service Inspector General for answers to regional disruptions.
