By P.S. Suchan
I am writing this in response to the recent editorial rants of Cynthia Parkhill, in which she points the finger of blame at the U.S. Postal Service for the late delivery or, perhaps, sometimes non-delivery of the Lake County Record-Bee newspapers to it”s subscribers in Lake County. The specifics of her accusations are misleading to the paper”s readers and are not completely accurate. She would have every subscriber believe that the U.S. Postal Service is responsible for every late delivered or undelivered paper that is subscribed to by mail. She states that all of these papers are sent first to an out-of-county postal center before they are mailed back to Lake County to the subscribers and this is not true.
I am a substitute mail carrier for the Highway Contract Route in Upper Lake. The few newspapers that I deliver for that route which runs to Nice and returns to Upper Lake are delivered to the Upper Lake Post Office every morning by an employee of the newspaper itself. A “paperboy” with a delivery route that includes bringing papers to the post office for distribution via the mail. They are delivered to us there just like they are delivered to the rest of the subscribers on the route who have regular Record-Bee newspaper boxes in front of their houses on the street. There have been many mornings when this newspaper carrier has arrived late or sometimes not at all. I have answered a knock at the back door and listened to a carrier, more than once, curse and complain about their transportation breaking down, etc., and give excuses as to why these papers were late and possibly wouldn”t make it to be delivered in time with our mail.
We, at the post office, are not “paperboys” or employees of your newspaper”s circulation department. We have mail to deliver ? for that we readily accept the blame, sometimes daily, for the many things relating to the mail that can go wrong. Often these are things over which we have absolutely no control.
So as we already have taken responsibility for so many things relating to the mail, perhaps the Record-Bee needs to take responsibility for its own mistakes. These include any problems with its circulation and perhaps taking responsibility for the inaccurate information it tends to be printing a lot of lately. Perhaps you should consider hiring proofreaders to correct the many spelling and grammar errors seen daily. If you think that you can do my job better, you are more than welcome to it.
P.S. Suchan
Upper Lake
