Mail deliveries not always “swift”

by Jackie Nunnery – 

As the unofficial postal motto goes, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” But something is amiss that is preventing folks from getting their mail delivery on a timely basis, including the community newspaper.

Initial requests for answers from the United States Postal Service (USPS) pointed to the annual holiday rush as a reason for delays. “The 2020 holiday season was a record for the United States Postal Service with more than a billion packages delivered,” said USPS spokesman Freda Sauter.

But locally, delivery problems go back much further.

“It started about four or five years ago,” said Michelle Smith, circulation manager with the Southside Sentinel’s sister newspaper, the Rappahannock Record. Initially, there was an occasional hiccup, and Smith said local postmasters were “immensely helpful” in smoothing out delivery issues. Now she estimates that roughly 10% of the paper’s readers outside the Northern Neck are experiencing at least a one week delay in getting their local newspaper. 

The biggest difference between how mail is handled in Northern Virginia versus the Richmond region is the distribution center. Regardless of the destination, nearly every piece of mail that comes or goes from the Middle Peninsula and Northern Neck has gone through the Richmond Processing and Distribution Center (PDC) in Sandston…