Postmaster General Louis DeJoy just received another nasty-gram from Vermont’s congressional delegation, one of whom made a pit stop in Montpelier on Tuesday to give voice to their shared call for the return of a fully functioning post office to the Capital City.
Joined by unionized postal workers whose contract negotiations are now in overtime, Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., attended a brief rally in front of the State House late Tuesday morning.
Welch echoed sentiments expressed in the latest letter he, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., sent on Tuesday urging DeJoy take immediate action to fully restore postal operations that were interrupted by an historic flood 15 months ago.
Though the delegation’s message hasn’t changed in the past year, the latest rally was decidedly different from the one Welch and Balint attended in front of the flood-damaged federal building that once housed Montpelier’s post office back in January.
There were no children in Tuesday’s considerably smaller crowd, local officials were in short supply and colorful, creative hand-made signs that were on message were replaced by those mass-produced by the American Postal Workers Union.
The bottom line of all of them — “Better Contract Now!” — didn’t have anything to do with Montpelier’s partial post office — one Welch described as a “disgrace.”
“It’s an outrageous thing that we haven’t had a post office in Montpelier for 449 days,” he said, suggesting what has been set up this far in space the U.S. Postal Service has secured at City Center is a sorry substitute for a fully functioning retail post office.
“We’ve got (post office) boxes there, but you can’t buy a stamp,” he said. “It’s a post office in name only. I guess we’re paying rent, but we’re not getting any service … what kind of governmental action is that?”
The kind that prompted Welch, Sanders and Balint to pen another letter to DeJoy expressing their “disappointment and alarm” with a response that, in their view, has been too slow and woefully insufficient.
“… Nine months after the flood, USPS announced that it had signed a lease for a temporary retail post office located in downtown Montpelier, estimating completion and opening of the office by mid-summer,” they wrote. “Today, that retail space consists of an empty, unstaffed room with a bank of PO boxes affixed to one wall.
“… To make matters worse, in the many months since the flood, USPS has been uncommunicative and unresponsive to requests from impacted residents, community organizations, and the congressional delegation for information about plans for restoring service,” they added.
During a rally that was less rally and more short speech followed by an even shorter speech, Welch said the failure to respond — not just to the delegation, but to local officials and business leaders — was unacceptable.
“That’s them not answering Vermont’s call,” he said.
Ben Doyle, chair of the Montpelier Commission on Recovery and Resilience, kept his remarks short. He praised postal workers for showing up and for the work they do, and lamented the fact Montpelier is still waiting for the return of a full-service post office.
“We deserve better than this,” he said.
Story Written by David Delcore, Times Argus