Baltimore’s notoriously slow mail delivery system may be getting an upgrade.
On Tuesday, Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger announced that the U.S. Postal Service assigned new leadership in Baltimore. The changes include a new District Manager of Maryland, Lora McLucas, and new Postmaster of Baltimore, Eric Gilbert, who has previously held the position.
“The buck stops at the top: for too long, my constituents have been waging a relentless battle to simply get their mail on time, if at all,” Congressman Ruppersberger said in a statement.
Six local post offices – Dundalk, Essex, Rosedale, Parkville, Middle River and Loch Raven – are undergoing an audit by the USPS’ Inspector General. The results of the audit are expected next month.
Baltimore is consistently listed in the bottom 10 service areas in a performance tracker maintained by the inspector general’s office.
And in a USPS quarterly performance report for single-piece first-class mail, Baltimore came in last in the country. According to the report, three-to-five day mail was only 24.9 percent on time.
Ruppersberger initially requested an audit of local Baltimore post offices back in May, amid significant mail delays in the area. The conditions at one local post office were so bad that perishable mail was being eaten by rodents, he said.
The U.S. Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General created an online performance tracker for monitoring mail delivery times across the country. The Baltimore district reported 61.7 percent on-time during the second quarter of 2021. So far during the third quarter, it’s currently tracking at 80.8 percent.
