Mail Service Goes to the Dogs

By Olin Ericksen
Staff Writer

April 19 -- When Marta Schwab and scores of her neighbors failed to get mail for two days last week because a dog bit their carrier, it was the final straw for the Sunset Park neighborhood resident.

After years of complaining about the mail service, she decided to act. Schwab launched a grassroots campaign printing off hundreds of letters and leaving them on the doorsteps of her friends and neighbors throughout the Southeastern section of Santa Monica over the weekend.

“I am sick and tired of the horrible ‘service’ we receive,” Schwab wrote in the letter, citing continuing disruptions in service, “menacing carriers,” stolen checks and unresponsive customer service officials at the local post offices, complaints echoed by several of her neighbors.

In response, she is asking neighbors to organize and allow her to use their names and addresses to file complaints to the area’s U.S. Congressman, Henry Waxman, to officials running for State Assembly and to the postmaster general.

Schwab’s initiative comes after Waxman received nearly 100 letters complaining about the service at the Santa Monica facility last fall and promised to crack down on shoddy mail delivery in Los Angeles area facilities.

Postal officials have said that complaints have fallen to three per day, compared to nearly 25 per day last year.

Still, Schwab says she isn’t satisfied, countering that many of her neighbors, who were angry service was disrupted shortly before the tax deadline, feel there’s no point in filing complaints and feel more action is needed.

“The more residents that join, the more powerful we’ll be,” she said in the letter. “And right now, we obviously have no power at all.”

While the lack of service on Wednesday, April 12 was not unusual, it was the post office’s response to why the mail was not delivered that outraged Schwab and some of her neighbors.

On April 11, post office officials allege one of Schwab’s neighbors’ dogs bit a postal carrier on the thigh, causing postal officials to halt service to the area, which includes several square blocks.

“I must…inform you that if the dog is not removed, I will have to discontinue mail service delivery to the surrounding area around your home,” Art Santana, a manager with the Santa Monica Main post office, wrote in an April 14 letter to the dog’s owners.

The dog’s owners, who were not present at the time of the incident, were also told that in order to reestablish service to their residence, they must “permanently remove the dog within 10 working days,” according to Santana’s letter.

“We hope you understand the severity of this danger to our carrier and to your neighbors who are also may be affected by your dog,” he wrote.

The dog’s owners, who wish to remain anonymous, said the dog was with their housekeeper in an enclosed area. Postal officials counter that the dog ran out of the house into the fenced yard and bit the mailman when he was attempting to deliver the mail.

Soon after the incident, the dog owners called the post office and found out they did not have to get rid of their dog, but rather, could sign a waiver saying their dog was “secured” in the house.

“I called and the other manager was helpful after she found that I was not attacking her and was just trying to get some questions answered about how to keep my dog,” said the pet’s owner.

Santana – the customer service manager – made no mention of the option to “secure” the dog in his letter, writing only that the dog must be removed from the premises.

According to Larry Dozier, the communications programs specialist for the United States Postal Service in the Los Angeles area, Santana did follow the correct and “standard” procedure when he wrote the letter omitting the option to have the dog secured.

However, in an earlier interview with The Lookout, he also said that Santana did “not entirely” follow policy, and could have included the information.

“The fact is that he did not make the dog owners aware of all their options…I’m not sure why he did not put that in the letter also,” said Dozier, “I will have to ask him.”

He also said Santana was aware of the policy.

“Art knows the procedure, but he could have been a bit overzealous in his protection of his mail carriers, I don’t know,” said Dozier.

Santana may be “spoken to” about the incident, he said, but any formal complaints may be filed with the USPS consumer affairs department.

“If there was an overreaction, we apologize for that,” said Dozier.

As to the Santa Monica Post offices’ service record, Dozier pointed to a solid drop in complaints in the last few months.

Area residents, however, have another explanation.

“We’re so used to not getting our mail, that many figure, ‘What’s the use in filing a complaint?’” said Schwab.

As for the dog’s owner, their main complaints were that there did not seem to be a set standard to handle such incidents and that customer service representatives were unresponsive and unfriendly.

“There’s no procedure, no process if an incident like this happens,” said the dog-owner, who had to file an extension for taxes because documents from her accountant were lost in transit. “We just want our mail.”