ATLANTA — U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff visited the USPS Atlanta Regional Processing Facility in Palmetto on Thursday amid delays.
Ossoff made remarks after the tour during a news conference.
Throughout Thursday's conference, he reiterated his mission to continue pushing for "maximum pressure" on Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.
The U.S. senator described what he saw in the facility as "no obvious, immediately apparent, and highly visible examples of malfunction."
"We were not here at peak operating hours for the facility; much of the activity at a sort of industrial scale takes place overnight. Really, the most significant benefit of today's visit was the opportunity to sit down with the local management," he added.
At the news conference, Ossoff said he is specifically looking into the delays in prescriptions and absentee ballots.
Ossoff said on Thursday that he believes the delays are a "failure of a transition across this region, which centralizes this facility," referring to the Delivering for American rollout.
"It was not properly planned for, it was not properly managed, there was no one in charge, and the results have been devastating for Georgians," the senator added.
He also said that residents shouldn't blame postal workers.
"I know and believe that postal workers across our state are working their hearts out every day with the best intentions and commitment to the public. This is not on postal workers. Postal workers have tough jobs," Ossoff said. "This is a question of management, competent management."
According to USPS service data, the Palmetto facility performed at a 60.55% on-time rate so far in May, with a target goal of 92.5%.
"What remains is whether that will stick, whether that will continue, whether timely service will be restored to the level of expectation that Georgians have for the postal service," he added.
For weeks, Ossoff has been pressing the USPS for answers on delays at its new regional processing facility south of Atlanta. The issues were first reported on by 11Alive after viewers contacted our station to report undelivered mail, missing medication and lost packages.
The delays in Atlanta are traced to the new Atlanta Regional Processing & Distribution Center in Palmetto. It opened on Feb. 24, consolidating Atlanta, Augusta, Macon and Duluth area processing and distribution centers, which are each being repurposed as local processing centers. Following Richmond, Virginia, Atlanta was one of the first regional areas to see major network changes.
On Thursday, reporters asked Ossoff if he believed the postmaster general should lose his job.
He explained that the president or Congress cannot fire the postmaster general; only the Board of Governors of the US Postal Service can.
"I have extraordinarily low confidence in the postmaster general based upon the incompetent management of this transition ongoing in Georgia," he told reporters.
Previously, Ossoff set a May 16 deadline for DeJoy to respond, giving concrete answers on how the USPS planned to improve delivery rates.
On May 17, the day after the deadline, DeJoy sent a letter addressing how the USPS would address the "significant drop in performance," which DeJoy described as "unanticipated." You can read more about those plans here.
USPS response after Ossoff's visit
Shortly after the senator visited, a spokesperson for the post office responded with the following statement:
“Local and headquarters Postal leadership were pleased to provide a facility tour of the Palmetto Regional Processing and Distribution Center this afternoon to Senator Jon Ossoff at his request. A tour had been originally offered several months ago when the Postmaster General met with the Senator to brief him on the investments being made in the Atlanta area to overcome years of underperformance and a chaotic local network of facilities and inefficient transportation that had been allowed to evolve over the decades in a reactive, but not logical or strategic manner.
Senator Ossoff was briefed again today on the modernization and logical flow of mail that the Palmetto facility was established to create. He was briefed on the substantial improvements in processing and delivery performance that have been achieved in recovery from a disappointing implementation experience. Unfortunately, the Senator did not have the time to also tour the other facilities that feed the Palmetto plant, such as the Sorting and Delivery Center that was established in February as the first in the nation to deliver mail using Postal Service electric vehicles.
Since the first week of March, our service performance scores in the region have shown consistent improvement. Notably, First Class Composite Performance has improved by nearly 30-percent. While we are not entirely satisfied with the current levels, this positive trend indicates that the challenges we faced in March are being actively addressed. Attached, you will find a letter to the entire Georgia delegation, dated April 22. This letter outlines the significant actions the Postal Service has undertaken to enhance timely mail delivery.”
Read the full April 22 letter referenced in the statement below.
Those experiencing delays or who have not received mail can contact the newsroom with your concerns as we continue to cover this story. Fill out our online form below, and someone from our news team will follow up with you.
Re-watch the full news conference below.