Not So Special Mail Delivery for Peninsula City

Shelley Levitt didn’t think much of it when she peered into an empty mailbox one day last week.

That was on a Monday.

She scratched her head after a second straight no-mail day on Tuesday. And then when the mail didn’t arrive at its normal time on Wednesday afternoon, Levitt got to talking to some neighbors, who like her, hadn’t had mail delivered all week either.

Levitt, a retiree who’s lived in the same Foster City home on Arcturus Circle for some 37 years, says that other than Sundays and holidays, before last week, she can’t recall a day when some piece of mail – anything – ended up in her box.

When she called her local post office, a supervisor told Levitt that the disruption was the result of route cancellations, and that it would probably take several weeks to get back to normal.

“For me personally I didn’t feel that I was getting anything in the mail that would change my life, but it could have been for other people,” she said.

“Not everybody has direct deposit.”

Nevertheless, Levitt is concerned that with the United States Postal Service reportedly considering massive cutbacks – the USPS is reportedly losing $8 billion a year and is considering cutting 120,000 jobs – the service disruption she and her neighbors experienced portends a different kind of future for postal service for Foster City, and beyond.

The USPS has already started downsizing, although not on the scale that’s project over the next few years.

Speaking with friends in different parts of town who experienced similar disruptions last week did little to quell her concerns.

“This is happening all over Foster City,” she said.  “Apparently they’ve eliminated seven routes.”

Patch couldn’t independently verify Levitt’s claim. A postal supervisor with authority over Levitt’s route didn’t return calls to Patch, however postal employees are generally not authorized to speak to the media.

USPS spokesman James Widgel said he wasn’t aware of the specifics of the Foster City situation, but called what Widgel and some of her neighbors described “an anomaly.”

When asked if the projected cutbacks point to more disruptions such as those affecting Foster City, Widgel said “emphatically, no.”

“When we make route adjustments and changes we absolutely try to make sure that it’s seamless to the customer,” he said.

Widgel said that the USPS is committed to maintaining the current service that customers expect, a standard that he says the USPS has lived up to at every turn, including a recent round of budget cuts, and that that won’t change despite what he acknowledged are unprecedented projected cutbacks.

“Service is our life blood,” he said.

“We’re mandated by law to provide regular and effective service and so far we’ve done a pretty good job,” Widgel said

He acknowledged however, that the Foster City situation, as described, is unacceptable.

“What happened in Foster City shouldn’t have happened,” he said. “I don’t know how it happened or if it happened, but that’s the anomaly, not the norm.”

Levitt remains skeptical however about what the new norm will look like, and is concerned that if her experience is any indication, more disruptions such as the one she and her neighbors experienced are likely, if not inevitable.

A Foster City man named Denis, who asked that his last name not be published, described a similar service disruption to Patch.

“It’s not just for me,” she said. “I was just concerned that I wasn’t getting mail, but I was (more) concerned about people who depend on the mail for income.”

Have you had spotty mail service lately? Tell us in the comments.