There is a 10-year plan to revamp and improve the United States Postal Service’s performance across the country, which included a study of the Tallahassee headquarters on South Adams Street.
Many Leon County residents have long complained about poor mail delivery, often venting their frustrations to elected officials and on social media.
The USPS has said it will continue to operate out of its Tallahassee branch and has scheduled a public meeting to talk about its plans.
While conducting a facility study of its processing and distribution center on South Adams Street, USPS this week made new information public. In its current configuration, the postal service disclosed for the first time that it had considered closing the facility.
“We have been working on this ongoing issue and making sure that mail delivery services will have improvements,” County Commissioner Brian Welch told the Tallahassee Democrat.
USPS has announced that a public hearing will take place Nov. 14 to discuss the future of the Tallahassee processing facility and to hear from local residents.
Members of the community may submit written comments and concerns at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/mpfr-tallahassee-fl
The review is the result of several years — dating back to 2019 — of attempts to address issues.
“I’ve always received late mail and packages when ordering things that should have taken 2-3 business days but instead would sometimes take up to 2 weeks for delivery,” said Candice Moore, a Leon County resident.
USPS formed a fact sheet that outlines plans to open new regional processing and distribution centers and provide them with “state-of-the-art technologies that process packages more efficiently.” Some of the plans discussed are as follows:
Parcel pressure, or the practice of encouraging parcel delivery above normal mail service because they are more profitable, was one of the primary problems they discovered. Factors included difficulties in hiring new employees, keeping up with distribution routes, and a lack of personnel.
The public meeting will take place at 2:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 14, at the downtown public library. The meeting has been organized by USPS with the goal of sharing various issues and allowing others to discuss and provide feedback on the behalf of the community.
The Tallahassee facility is expected to remain operational and be modernized as a local processing center, as supported by the preliminary findings of the facility evaluation. The business also backs the relocation of some mail processing functions to the Jacksonville network distribution centers.