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Experiencing Postal Service Delays in St. Louis? Blame the Darkness | St. Louis

Published

9 months ago

January 9, 2024

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click to enlarge Some St. Louis neighborhoods have endured serious delays in getting their mail in recent months.

Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat is supposed to keep postal carriers from delivering the mail. But they’ve apparently given up on that whole gloom of night thing.

Throughout December and into the first week of January, my neighborhood in the City of St. Louis has been plagued by an absence of reliable mail service. Throughout the holidays, my house was lucky to get mail once a week, with delays that far exceeded what you might anticipate. A birthday card postmarked November 14 in Cleveland showed up on December 7. A tracked order “out for delivery” on December 11 finally made it out of the mail truck and onto my doorstep six days later — along with two weeks’ worth of holiday cards.

Frustrated by his own lack of timely mail, a neighbor who lives one block away, Dr. Robert Bruce, called the local postmaster. (Like many a retiree, Dr. Bruce is known to take action while people like me just complain on social media.) He was told all the previous day’s mail had been sent back to the post office “because it got too dark out.” The postmaster couldn’t explain what had happened the day before that, or the one before that.

It’s not only Compton Heights, where I live. A reader in Lafayette Square contacted me this summer to say that her part of the neighborhood routinely only gets mail a few times a week — something the U.S. Postal Service didn’t even try to deny when she called. “They said my route is an overtime route and therefore only serviced a few times a week,” she reported.

Reached for comment, the U.S. Postal Service did not directly address my question about what constitutes an “overtime” route (and all I could find online is that the agency has cracked down on carriers who need it to finish their work — to the point of apparently deleting hours those carriers worked, according to an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity). To my great surprise, it also failed to deploy the excuse common to local government in recent years: They’re understaffed.

Instead, it issued this statement, “The Postal Service is committed to providing the best possible service to our customers and we are currently experiencing no delays in the St. Louis, Missouri, area. However for anyone with a service-related issue, we recommend they go to www.usps.com and click on ‘Contact us’ at the bottom of our homepage or utilize this direct web address: usps.force.com/emailus/s/. We are actively hiring in the St. Louis, MO area and interested applicants can get more information at www.usps.com/careers.”

It did not respond to my follow-up question asking what would explain the mail problems my neighborhood has been seeing if there are “no delays.”

U.S. Representative Cori Bush (D-St. Louis) has a different take. Her office told my neighbors it had been “hearing this issue all over the district.” But unlike the postal service spokesman, it did attribute it to the agency being “severely understaffed.” Bush said she had been in contact with the U.S. Postal Service over the past six months trying to get the mail service fixed.

Since I first reached out on this story last Friday, I’ve gotten mail for three straight days and so have my neighbors — something I attribute less to my own inquiries and more to my neighbors aggressively calling everyone from Bush to the local postmaster for weeks now. The end of the holiday rush has surely helped.

Sadly, I’m struck mainly by how little relief I feel. There’s one time of the year — and one time of the year only — when I eagerly check my mailbox. I suppose for every month but December, living on an overtime route wouldn’t even be so bad. But please don’t quote me on that; I know my neighbors would not agree.

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

5 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

5 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

5 months ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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