Mailbox Pickup in Central Piedmont Extended to 5 p.m.
– Post Office Restores 5:00 PM Weekday Pickup at Highland Way Mailboxes –
February 17, 2015 press release –
The United States Postal Service (USPS) has restored the 5:00 PM weekday pickup at the mailboxes at the corner of Highland Avenue and Highland Way. This restoration of services culminates almost a year’s worth of work by the City of Piedmont to have this evening pickup restored.
With only a few weeks’ notice, on April 8, 2014, the USPS eliminated the 5:00 PM pickup from these mailboxes, leaving only a single pickup per day and eliminating a service widely used by Piedmonters. Upon hearing of the change, Mayor Margaret Fujioka and City staff began working with the USPS to restore the service and determine their reasoning for the change.
This work began with the service manager of the Piedmont post office, located on 40th Street in Oakland. When efforts at working locally failed, City Administrator Paul Benoit met with the Manager of Customer Service operations for the Oakland area. After this meeting produced no results, staff contacted Congresswoman Barbara Lee to intervene on Piedmonters’ behalf with the USPS.
After months of work, the Congresswoman arranged a meeting on December 1, 2014 between the Oakland Postmaster, the Mayor, the City Administrator, and staff to discuss the situation. The Mayor stressed the importance of the additional late pick-up to Piedmonters and urged the Oakland Postmaster to work with the City to restore the service as soon as possible.
Postmaster Daryl Trujillo indicated that the USPS would study usage at these boxes and see if they met the criteria for a later pickup. The City was informed last week that the late pickup would be restored.
“First and foremost, I want to thank the many Piedmonters who wrote and called the USPS to request the restoration of the late pickup. Their input was critical to our success,” said Mayor Margaret Fujioka. “I also want to thank Congresswoman Lee, her staff, and Postmaster Trujillo for their efforts to address this issue. I could not be more pleased with the results of this truly collaborative process.”
Piedmont City Clerk, John Tulloch
