Delivering for Missourians

Dear Friend,

The United States Postal Service (USPS) is a lifeline for millions of Americans. It doesn’t matter if you live in Kansas City or rural Knox County. We all count on the postal service to deliver our prescriptions, bills, packages, and checks on time.

It’s so important that the postal service is the only federal agency specifically authorized by our Constitution. Delivering the mail on time is one of the few things the federal government should do—and should do well. Unfortunately, they aren’t—at least not in the Kansas City area.

For months, Congressman Emanuel Cleaver and I have been sounding the alarm that the Postal Service is failing to live up to its legal obligation to provide mail delivery six-days-a-week in the Kansas City area. Rather than addressing the problem, USPS leaders largely ignored it. That is, until Congressman Cleaver and I demanded Postmaster General DeJoy come to Kansas City, listen to the concerns of area residents, and deliver a plan to fix this mess.

Shortly thereafter, the Postal Service announced an audit of mail delivery delays in the Kansas City area. Less than a week later, they provided us with a more detailed plan to increase staffing. They plan to bring in workers from other areas and allow managers to offer more competitive benefits to attract new employees. That’s a good start, but there’s more work to be done and we look forward to hearing what the Inspector General finds out.

Ultimately, a plan doesn’t mean anything if you don’t follow it. I’m going to keep the pressure on to make sure they do. These failures and delays can’t continue—not in Kansas City or anywhere else. Americans need reliable mail service six-days-a-week, period.

I want to be clear that this isn’t a criticism of the hundreds of thousands of hardworking frontline postal service employees—the processing center employees, mail carriers, and post office workers that get things done. They’ve been let down by the failure of USPS leadership to support them in their vital mission.

Sincerely,

Sam Graves