Editor, the News
I am writing in response to a letter from Mr. Randy Wolff of Mount Vernon appearing on August 26. In his letter, Mr. Wolff said that my previous letter of August 19 about the importance of the rural postal service delivering items FedEx and UPS do not deliver, was “a flat out lie.” It is, in fact, verifiably true.
Although Mr. Wolff has 30 years of experience as a UPS delivery agent in three Ohio counties, there seems to be more involved than delivering the items workers pick up from a central location. A quick Google search reveals an August 17 article written by Sheridan Hendrix profiling a postal worker in rural Ohio, in which certain items end up as part of rural postal workers’ delivery responsibilities. In the article, Hendrix says, “Rural carriers also shoulder deliveries for...competitors such as FedEx, UPS, and Amazon. Every morning [Carrier] Miller sorts through five pallets of Amazon deliveries...A few more pallets will show up from FedEx and UPS throughout the week.”
A further Google search on Quora indicates that UPS and FedEx routinely deliver packages to rural carriers after their own drivers complete the long leg of the delivery, leaving the shorter, but more expensive, leg of the delivery to USPS. This is because FedEx and UPS are profit-making businesses, but the postal service is a non-profit service for all Americans.
In addition, the Hendrix news article was picked up by a number of media outlets. Mr. Wolff spoke disparagingly about The New York Times, suggesting the Times was not an acceptable source of information. However, this exact same article was picked up and printed in Stars and Stripes, USA Today, The Canton Repository, and The Columbus Dispatch among others. Most of us find all of these sources acceptable. Also, facts found in more than one credible media outlet tend to be more reliable.
Patricia Burdette, PhD
Butler, Knox County
