Mail Delivery

Really? A law to make it illegal in Harford County to park in front of a mailbox between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.? Has the Harford County Council really come to this? Apparently so since Dick Slutzky, who lives in Aberdeen and represents that community among others on the county council, proposed just such legislation last week. Mail carriers won't deliver mail to mailboxes that are obstructed by a parked vehicle. Slutzky said the problem is post office policy doesn't allow drivers to exit their vehicles to walk around a parked vehicle to stick the mail in the box. "It's unfortunate that we even have to consider such a thing but it's been a real problem in some areas of the county …," Slutzky said as he introduced the bill at the July 12 Harford County Council meeting.

Mail carriers will attempt to resume deliveries today, according to the U.S. Postal Service. Deliveries were canceled throughout Maryland on Saturday due to the snowy weather, said Postal Service spokewoman Freda Sauter. On Monday, "carriers will make every attempt to deliver as long as there's safe conditions," she said. Residents are asked to clear a path to their mailboxes to ensure it is visible and safe to access. Mail will not be delivered if carriers deem conditions to be unsafe, according to the postal service.

During the health care debates, a culprit emerged as proof that the federal government is anti-competitive, wasteful and inefficient: The U.S. Postal Service. Why hate on the post office? The USPS is America's second-largest employer, with 34,000 facilities and the nation's largest vehicular fleet. It's also on track to lose $7 billion this year. Conservatives say the underlying problem is the post office's monopolistic nature. As the only carrier permitted to deliver non-urgent mail to households, the USPS' lack of competition, coupled with its salary, benefit and pension obligations to unionized postal workers, make for weak capitalistic tea. Approximately eighty percent of all expenditures go to employee pay and benefits.

Post office wants to cut mail delivery by a day WASHINGTON: Huge deficits could force the post office to cut out one day of mail delivery, the postmaster general told Congress yesterday, in asking lawmakers to lift the requirement that the agency deliver mail six days a week. If the change happens, that doesn't necessarily mean an end to Saturday mail delivery. Previous post office studies have looked at the possibility of skipping some other day when mail flow is light, such as Tuesday.

The Q: Clay Seeley of Owings Mills believes he receives his mail based on the whims of his mail carrier, claiming that the "post office is very inconsistent in their delivery practices." Seeley said he had been living at his home for six years when a friend from Georgia had tickets to a stock car race mailed to Seeley's address. "If he couldn't make the trip, I would use them," Seeley said. "The arrival date came and went with no tickets. My friend called to tell me that the race track had called to tell him that the tickets had been returned, `No Such Person at this Address.

The U.S. Postal Service and private delivery companies struggled yesterday to restore service to hurricane-damaged parts of the Gulf Coast but remained cut off from their operations in flooded and lawless New Orleans. Meanwhile, pensioners evacuated from areas ravaged by Katrina converged on Social Security offices in nearby cities to receive replacements for checks mailed to stricken areas. The postal service set up mobile post offices in three hard-hit Mississippi cities - Biloxi, Gulfport and Escatawpa - so people cut off from their homes can pick up benefits checks, spokesman Gerry McKiernan said.

WASHINGTON - Mail delivery in Sen. Patrick J. Leahy's office goes like this: Aides to the Vermont Democrat open the windows, slip on rubber gloves, sift through letters and then, in the most disquieting part of the daily ritual, start worrying about feeling sick. It is not anthrax they fear, but its antidote. In recent weeks, some congressional aides have complained that mail on Capitol Hill, all of which is being irradiated to kill anthrax and other deadly agents, is making them ill. They say the mail is causing skin irritation, headaches and nausea, as well as tingling, bleeding and the taste of metal in their mouths.

The trucks were rolling in and out on schedule yesterday afternoon at the U.S. Postal Service's East Fayette Street processing center, handling their portion of the 5 million pieces of mail from the greater Baltimore area that flow through here each day. That mail is sent to 30 distribution points, including Baltimore-Washington International Airport. But since Tuesday's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington and the resulting nationwide ban on air traffic, all mail had been going onto an expanded fleet of trucks and Amtrak rail cars instead of airplanes.

Time for a heartwarming holiday custom: Fall by Baltimore's downtown Post Office, get checked for weapons, camp in a conference room, overhear a postal employee say, "I love the smell of mail in the morning," and read letters to Santa:Dear Santa,I am sorry about how I stole 150 dollers from Mom. I will never do it agian. For Christmas I would like Extreme Godzilla and some hiding places for Walter, my snake. The rest is for you to decide. I'll talk to you next year.Love,RobertEach year, the Post Office receives hundreds of letters addressed to Santa.

THE U.S. Postal Service is caught in a bind that inevitably makes it an unpopular agency. Inflation and modernization costs keep forcing up the price of first-class postage. Every time the cost of mailing a letter goes up, the public complains.This time around, the agency has managed to postpone a rate hike for four years. And the 2.9 percent increase, effective in January, is less than inflation for the second straight time.That should be grounds for applause from the public.It isn't.During that time, the Postal Service saw volume and revenue increase, leading to a cumulative profit of $5.8 billion.