WASHINGTON, D.C. (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Four Virginia lawmakers met with U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Monday, April 27, 2024. That to discuss severe mail delays plaguing central Virginia.

Among them were Sens. Tim Kain and Mark Warner who were less than impressed with the date, as both had been pushing for a meeting for months.

The meeting followed a report by the USPS Inspector General (IG) on the Richmond Regional Processing and Distribution Center (RPDC) – the first consolidated processing center in the country that was opened to centralize outgoing mail and package processing as part of USPS’s 10-year Delivering for America plan. The issues include an egregious lack of attention to detail (pieces of mail falling off conveyor belts and being lost), poor synchronizing between machines processing mail at the facility and the trucks transporting mail to and from the facility, and broader questions about whether the RPDC model is generating the promised cost savings and efficiency improvements.

“It has been pretty much a disaster,” said Sen. Kaine.

“For me, it was a little bit of a movie I’d seen previously,” said Sen. Warner. “I guess the good news is that the postmaster general agreed that the rollout in Richmond was a disaster, it was a mess, and it needs to be corrected.”

Warner went on to say that the meeting was just the beginning and that he and his colleagues will continue to press for increased transparency, greater public engagement, and a higher standard of service.