Residents on a rural route just outside of Eugene say they aren’t getting their mail.
Scott Palmer lives in the 97402 ZIP code and told KLCC he hasn’t gotten mail for well over a week. “We’ve lived there since 1987 and we’ve never had this problem before,” he said.
Palmer started worrying about the lack of mail delivery while waiting for two prescriptions to arrive. He said when they didn’t show, he tracked them back to the Westside Station Post Office. He says a postal clerk told him there were pallets of undelivered mail in the back. Now, Palmer worried he and his neighbors might not get their ballots in time.
"Mail ballots are supposed to be mailed out on the 17th [of October] but what if we’re not gonna get them? And secondly, if we don’t have a mail carrier picking up at the mailbox, you know, that puts an extra burden on the voter to drive it to a mail collection facility," he said. "My wife and I took the extra precaution of getting absentee ballots.”
KLCC asked the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to respond to reported concerns. A Seattle-based spokesperson said the route in question is now handled by a “contracted delivery service” and said USPS records don’t show any addresses missing mail for a week.
Palmer, who is a Municipal Court Judge for the City of Creswell, said neither he nor the neighbors he’s talked to have been notified about any transition to a new mail delivery provider. He added that postal carriers have told him and others on his route that the issue is around staffing or the lack of it.
According to the USPS, aggressive hiring efforts are underway, including in Eugene, as mail carriers, handlers, and clerks remain in high demand. The Postal Service wrote it expects this single route to “return to normal in the immediate future.”
Palmer said he and his neighbors take this issue seriously. He’s reached out to lawmakers with this request: “Muster the resources necessary to make meaningful change and get the mail delivered.”
Meanwhile, Palmer and his neighbors in rural west Eugene watch their mailboxes and wait.
