DENVER — Mail deliveries in several Colorado mountain towns are at least a month behind schedule, delaying service to tens of thousands of customers and leaving ill residents without their medications and others without their retirement checks and important tax documents.
Staffing shortages, short post office hours, low wages and increased housing costs have led to the backup, a situation that has persisted for years but worsened over the holiday season, town leaders say.
Many of the towns don’t get home deliveries from Amazon, UPS and FedEx. Instead, their packages are dropped off at local post offices to be delivered later by contractors hired by the U.S. Postal Service as rural postal carriers, several town officials said.
Residents say mail hasn’t been reliable in months, with some waiting more than six weeks for bills, letters and postcards. Even passports have been delayed weeks beyond the standard time it takes to get one. At least 45,000 residents are affected by the slowdown.
Heather Wood, 47, who lives in Silverthorne, more than 60 miles west of Denver, said supplements to ease the effects of her stage 4 lung cancer arrived about six weeks later than expected.
“Some changes need to be made,” Wood said. “I feel like the postal service needs to take a step forward.”
The backlog in Colorado is another black mark for the U.S. Postal Service, which has been criticized over the years for service delays across the country. Criticism peaked in 2020 before the presidential election as cutbacks delayed service just as millions of Americans were relying on mail-in ballots during the first year of the pandemic.
On a national level, the U.S. Postal Service said staffing shortages this year have contributed to slow mail deliveries in Elmira, New York, and South Lake Tahoe, California.
In Silverthorne, resident Ernie Frey, 65, said his three-month supply of prescription eyedrops, which cost $2,000, was delivered more than a month late. He received the last of his…
Read the full article here