There's certainly the concern I have is the role of being a commissioner
and what our responsibilities are.
But I also have on a very personal level,
a concern of how things are being operated
at the postal service because of my own experience
both in the US market. But I've also done quite a bit internationally as well.
Um
I've been through this, I have been through opening new facilities,
uh shifting volumes between major facilities.
I know how that's done. I know what the procedures are.
Um
And I'm really very concerned about what's happened here. I, I
have never, and it's interesting talking
to several of my colleagues internationally among modern posts around the world.
I have never seen this level of degradation of service.
Um It's, it's literally everyone I'm talking to that. I know in the postal community
um
unprecedented um
when,
when you make moves and there's certainly a level
of disruption when you open a new facility,
but there's a very defined process of how that's done.
Uh You, you get data upfront, you analyze upfront,
you plan
and then you implement and in that process, there are checkpoints.
Um What I'm seeing I'm looking very specifically at Atlanta.
The results there are just horrendous.
I've never seen anything done like that.
Um, again, I've been through this before. I have opened new facilities.
You do it in a very set gradual manner to make sure things are under control,
to just flip the switch, turn it on and it doesn't work.
And then I think most shocking to me not only didn't it work, but I'm watching the,
the results in Atlanta that are going on now for six weeks.
Wh
why would you allow that to happen
under the old facilities in Atlanta and North Atlanta where it was being processed?
It wasn't fantastic scores but they were reliable.
They were in the high eighties to 90% range for first class mail.
Why would you accept numbers that they, they dropped as low as 10% on time?
Um
To me,
you would do a gradual shift over to make
sure the operation is under control and dependable.
But apparently that didn't happen. I fully understand
that the Postmaster General and his staff have to revise the network
when you go from 213 billion pieces of mail to barely 100 billion.
You obviously can't run the network the same way.
So a redesign of the network, I have absolutely no problem with that at all.
It has to be done
to keep service and to be operationally efficient. No problem.
The problem I have is delivering for America. And this is something
the regulatory commission as a group has spoken about.
The, the terminology we call it is lack of transparency.
Um As somebody who's worked in the postal sector for 45 years,
um
that plan,
it's high level, it's,
it's fancy, it's pretty,
it doesn't have depth of information.
So to actually say,
will the specific plan work?
I don't know, I don't know enough about what they actually plan to do.
We have inquired a number of times.
Um In many cases,
much like has happened to the House and
Senate committees and other members of Congress,
we don't always get answers.
Uh And so we don't have enough depth of knowledge
to really fully understand how this is going to be implemented.
What are the specific actions and and what should happen
to me at this point because I don't know the depth of their plan.
I I it's not only, I don't know the plan.
Hey, again, having been through this,
I was part of the team that created the corporate automation plan in 1988.
So I know what it is to build a plan and it starts with in depth analysis, good data.
You really have to understand what's happening and then you build a plan,
you don't build a plan based upon an opinion or a thought.
When you're an organization of this size, it's got to be data driven,
very analytical.
I've never seen that. I don't know, they may have done it. I've never seen it.
I would hope they've done it because no one
in their right mind would implement a plan like this
without that kind of analysis
and a clear plan of implementation, but I've never seen it. So, I don't know.
I guess my best assumption is they've done it,
but I don't know about it
again. I,
I want to be clear,
I do believe that the Postal Service
needs to
change its network with the declining volumes, with the shift in volumes.
Uh much less, it's not only a decline in volume, but it's less of traditional mail,
the letters, the postcards that volume's gone down. That's the reality of the
digital age we live in.
Um and there's a growth in packages so it has to change.
I am not in any way opposed to change,
but let's make sure that the change is clearly thought out
both in terms of strategies and tactics. A
again, I'm third generation postal.
I've spent my entire adult career really working this.
I care about the postal service. I care about the people that work for it
and I care about the American public that we serve.
Um
I'm not doing this to attack anybody.
It may seem that way and yeah, maybe there's a personal side to it,
but
I just want to see the postal service succeed.
And honestly,
if I could help Mr
Dejoy, get things fixed that I know are being done wrong.
I would gladly tell it to him in secret and he can take full credit for it.
I just want to see the damn thing fixed. The postal service
is an essential service to the American people that's not performing
well right now and we've got to get it fixed.
That's what we need to do. Let's figure out how to do that.