Westchester County Residents Say Postal Service Is Falling Down On Job
Editor's Note: This article was updated on March 10, 2015.
HARTSDALE, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- Some Westchester County residents are the latest to say that mail service has gone from predictable to sporadic, and that the Post Office is falling down on some of its basic duties.
As CBS2's Lou Young reported, the mail is moving in suburbia, but not as quickly or predictably as many expect.
In Hartsdale, complaints have been piling up.
Westchester County Residents Say Postal Service Is Falling Down On Job
"Anytime the weather's bad, the mail just does not show up," said Fran Newberg of Hartsdale.
"It seems like whenever we have a snowstorm -- or even just, in our opinion, even flurries -- it seems like we're not going to get our mail," said Ric Faust of Hartsdale.
"There have been days where we haven't gotten mail at all, my mother has had bills sent back to where they came from," Gina Pazienza of Hartsdale told WCBS 880's Sean Adams.
Paul Feiner is the Greenburgh Town supervisor, and he said failing postal deliveries have become a persistent problem.
"It's the second time in two years," he said. "I'm going to be sending many complaints to Washington and to Postal Service authorities."
And it is more than a simple inconvenience -- the Netflix DVDs are not all that are late. So are important bills and medicines.
"We can't order medicine through the mail. We can't rely on bills," said Scott Scloff of Hartsdale ."And this has been going for about a year, I'd say."
The area with a high concentration of complaints is served by a substation on Central Park Avenue.
Oddly, people using the counter at the Post Office have high praise for the service they get. One woman said she depends on the Post Office to mail out eBay purchases as part of her business.
"My business is great. I have a post office box here and it's great," said Robin Stiesmann of Hartsdale. "Home delivery is not as great. It's not."
It is a pattern that has been seen in the area before -- the Post Office becoming less of a government-subsidized and absolutely dependable daily mail service and more of a business depending on bulk customers.
That, after all is where the profits are.
"I almost feel like we're just going to have to deal with it, because I think it's going to get worse, not better," said Ed Salon of Hartsdale.
Similar problems were reported in Nyack back in January.
In an email to Adams, Postal Service spokesman George Flood said: "Service is a top priority for the Postal Service and every effort was made to affect mail delivery last Thursday during the snowstorm. A few streets on three of the twelve carrier routes in Harstdale were impacted. Full mail delivery was resumed on Friday."
He also said dissatisfied customers should call 914-697-7000 to voice their concerns.
