THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 31, 1994 TAG: 9407300434
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Postmaster General Marvin T. Runyon called two years ago for Washington, D.C.-area mail service to be a model for the nation. What he and Washington and the nation have instead is a monumental mail mess.
Auditors reported weeks ago that Washington's mail service was the worst in America during the three months before May 27. A Price-Waterhouse survey concluded that but 60.56 percent of Washington-area first-class mail arrived on time. Now it has been disclosed that a mid-May surprise inspection of major mail-handling centers in and around Washington turned up:
800,000 first-class letters that had languished for three days at the Southern Maryland mail-processing plant, plus 2.3 million bulk business letters that had been delayed for up to nine days;
more than 900,000 pieces of unprocessed mail at the Merrifield Post Office in Northern Virginia; and
undelivered first-class mail dating back to February at Washington's main post office.
This mail had been deposited mainly in Postal Service-leased trailers to keep it from being counted as ``delayed,'' thus forestalling reprimands or worse from higher-ups.
The Washington stashed-away-mail scandal looks to be even bigger than Chicago's, which also occurred on Mr. Runyon's watch.
In 1970, Congress converted the 141-year-old U.S. Post Office Department into the quasi-private U.S. Postal Service. The Post Office Department was a boondoggle. It had slowed to a snail's pace, burdened by patronage appointments of incompetent postmasters, overstaffing and undermechanization. The public clamored for relief.
The U.S. Postal Service promised it. And USPS has bettered the old post office's record in many respects. It has shrunk the number of unprofitable post offices. It moves much more mail with fewer people than its predecessor did, and most of that mail is delivered on time. It has been largely self-supporting.
But for all the billions spent on mechanization, many post offices strike customers as less well-equipped than the average supermarket. Runyon's buyout plan to slim the work force seems to have backfired, leading to an exodus of experienced mail handlers while the less-skilled remain in place.
The time for tinkering is fast coming to an end. Mail piled up in trailers may make for funny news stories, but the situation is not comic. Businesses are increasingly avoiding the mails altogether, using faxes, electronic mail and private couriers to ensure that important messages and items, such as checks, are delivered on time.
Congress is holding hearings to determine if any laws were broken by those who hid gobs of mail in trailers. It would be better if it began looking into ways of moving government out of the mail delivery business. The chairman of the British postal service has just proposed such a step in his country. Mr. Runyon ought to be doing the same thing here. by CNB