Patterson Drive-Up Mailboxes Removed

August 15, 2020, 4:00 am 34.3k Views 92 Comments

By an edhat reader

The drive-up mailboxes at the US Post Office on Patterson Ave in Goleta have been removed. Does anyone know why?

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  5. trump’s lackey, dejoy, is indeed trying to eviscerate the Postal Service. When called out on the box removal, Rod Spurgeon — a USPS spokesperson for the service’s the Western region — said that the service will stop the removal of letter collection boxes in 16 states and parts of two others until after the election.
    That means, according to Spurgeon, the USPS will stop removing the letter collection boxes only in: Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Iowa, Alaska, Nebraska and small parts of Wisconsin and Missouri.
    They’re still going to try to hobble California’s service, unfortunately.

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  6. Per CNN,
    “In a statement Friday night, Rod Spurgeon — a USPS spokesperson for the service’s the Western region — told CNN that the service will stop the removal of letter collection boxes in 16 states and parts of two others until after the election.”
    I guess somebody didn’t get the memo.

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  8. USPS has been running at huge deficits for years. This should not be anyone’s surprise that it needs to cut expenses to pay for mounting debts. Plus Amazon delivery is taking away virtually all of the USPS package delivery services. Rock and a hard place. One more “covid” mortality – and one more Amazon “covid” gain. Almost as if this “pandemic” was tailor-made just to benefit Jeff Bezos.

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  12. It is the new Postmaster General new policies. It’s all over the national news ! He is having mailboxes removed from democratic states and swing states. AND removed 671 high capacity mail sorting machines. It is because Trump is against mail in ballots. Don’t believe me ? Trump has said it himself multiple times this week at his “press” briefings. Take your ballot to the ballot drop off box or poll station.
    The new Postmaster General used to run a $100 million superPAC for trump. He’s given well over a million dollars to trump reelection campaign. Look it up.

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  14. So…how do you mail a letter at the Patterson Avenue PO? Does this mean you have to park your car, get out and go inside the building? How in the hell is Trump allowed to get away with this illegal bullshit? WHY AREN’T OUR LEGISLATORS DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT?

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  20. BYZANTIUM It’s a service guaranteed by the constitution. You want to make it political because that’s what you guys do and make up alternative facts. The facts are the Amazon and USPS are re-negotiating a contract. That will likely drive USPS into more debt if they price hike. Was 4 chan down today? When in doubt talk about Bezos, call Covid a hoax, and deflect. This is how children having a tantrum behave.

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  21. Actually the USPS is little more than a pension plan today, which has become its biggest budget item. It stopped being a public service a long time ago. Done in by email first, now the independent Amazon delivery service monopoly. It is a hollow shell of a service, sad to say. It had an honored place in our nation’s fabric at one time, but too many people moved on and left its main functions tattered and unsustainable.

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  22. ……….In reality, nothing nefarious is going on. The USPS, which is indeed cash strapped because it’s a terribly run organization that’s always cash strapped and has been for most of it’s history, is streamlining operations. Part of that is removing redundant, little used mailboxes when there is another one literally just a few feet away………. (RedState) NB: a few years back many local mailboxes were also eliminated for the same reasons. Was it a malevolent conspiracy back then, or just necessary cost cutting after an objective analysis?

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  23. Or Donald Trump? The USPS has been losing money for a long time and has been used as a political football before, but this time is different. “Getting efficient” 90 days prior to a General Election which will be the first and only General Election ever held during a pandemic in which 1,000 people are dying every day needlessly in the US. Mail-In ballots will save lives. I’m 73, and rely on my absentee ballot to vote (which happens to be MAIL-IN VOTING) and want to be sure that my vote counts. Removing those mail boxes NOW does not make any logical sense – just the opposite. If people cannot see this for the thuggery and authoritarian action that it is are not paying attention, or they are up for Trump to the new Dear Leader. Again, we are in “1933 Germany” now. Only a Biden victory in November stands between today and “1934 Germany”. Then, it’s Game Over, Man!

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  25. Agreed. Someone only had to go to You Tube and enter “Trump” “USPS”, and you will learn all you need to know. Trump has plainly and unambiguously stated that by slowing the mail down, “Universal Vote By Mail won’t be able to happen”. He said it like he was saying, “Honey, I’m going to be home for dinner late”. Same level of concern, same intent to interfere with the election, same middle finger to voters who don’t vote for him.

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  26. I read somewhere a few years ago that Amazon actually loses money every year, but is propped up by government subsidies. I’ll have to go down some rabbit hole to track that info down. Around the same time, there was a bill passed, basically, hobbling the USPS – that they had to have the funds for all pensions on hand and available – and impossible task. The routing of the USPS has been in the works for years.

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  28. The exterior collection boxes at Patterson were removed to stop thieves from placing sticky materiel inside the snorkel shaped collection slots. I have been told that the USPS has a new design box it is installing in place of the removed ones.

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  29. Thanks for reasonable and informed comments that point out: The Postal Service is Constitutionally mandated. There is no need for it to “make a profit” as it is a public service. Do we want our water system to “make a profit”? What about our military–are they to be hired guns? Second, the USPS has been burdened with the obligation to cover all possible retirement obligations ahead of those obligations. No one else is required to do that. Does the Army do that? We, as members of a constitutional democracy, have the choice to allow this “retirement debt” to accumulate and deal with it later or to simply write it off as public service. When Trump and the GOP gave huge tax relief to private parties which vastly increased the national debt why did we not hear a tremendous cry of objection from the “fiscally conservative” people who are so adamant about the USPS small potatoes issues?

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  30. I actually went into the Patterson Post Office there and asked a clerk as I was purchasing stamps. The mailboxes are being refurbished or replaced. There are a number of mailboxes having this done around town. The postal worker didn’t know when the work would be complete. Has nothing to do with the White House. I got this from a primary source, folks, so settle down.

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  31. General Tree; have you considered what is commonly referred to as the ‘big picture’? As of today, the official U.S. census bureau reckons the population of our United States to be 331,000,000, If you look up population by age, you can find that only 76,000,000 residents of our country are younger than 35. Simple subtraction tells us that there are 255,000,000 residents who are over 35, and therefore eligible to run for the presidency. Let’s cut the number in half, for argument’s sake, and for the sake of felons, illegals, et al. Let’s say that there are 125,000,000 citizens of these United States who are eligible to run for president. In my opinion, if Joe Biden and Donald Trump are the best we can do, we are fucked. Please consider the big picture, and not just snide, sophomoric, and disproven name calling. We need to address the systemic problems: why did Trump get elected in the first place, and why does the Democratic Party want us to become a socialist nation? We need to stand up for our country, and not for some chimerical political group, for these are the people who for some reason wish to divide us as a people, and not unite us as a nation.

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  33. Celestebarber. If that is the case, why is there not one sign about this anywhere in or around that post office ? Considering the environment around USPS right now, this is a massive oversight. It certainly does not look like a replacement coming. Plus, why not swap out on same day ? Certainly does not seem on the up and up

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  36. See how they just ignore and deflect the truth. Celestebarber has the real answer but it’s too hard to accept that as a real answer. Why? Because they have been trained & conditioned to blame orange man for everything. Some of you could really benefit by learning to think with your own head. No FOX no CNN just YOU!

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  37. 420722 Celeste got an answer from the person she bought stamps from. People wanting to find the actual truth would probably want to go higher in the organization – maybe confirm that what Celeste was told by the person who sold her stamps is true – and maybe get a few more facts such as the date we can expect the mailboxes to be replaced. I’m sure the postmaster will be getting a few calls on Monday.

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  38. Tee Gee – you forgot something while you were trying to not making sophomoric statements – you overlooked as part of the systemic problems, we need to understand why the Republican party has devolved into fascism and Q’Anon.

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  41. https://fortune.com/2017/07/16/amazon-postal-service-subsidy/ or https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/for-every-amazon-package-it-delivers-the-postal-service-loses-146 or https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/each-box-mailed-by-amazon-gets-1-46-govt-subsidy-amazon-getting-too-big-government-is-talking-about-it-its-time-to-bet-against-amazon/ https://newrepublic.com/article/146540/amazon-thriving-thanks-taxpayer-dollars I’ll keep looking for more, but there’s a red flag warning now and I need to focus on that.

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  43. 4:48 and 5:51 – The USPS is in the red because of the 2006 “Postal Enhancement Act” that requires it to pre-fund retiree benefits 75 years out. As for being “done in”, the USPS delivers 148 Billion pieces a year to FedEx’s four billion and UPS’s 5.5 Billion. Hardly “done in”. But it does appear dejoy is trying to do it in. By prohibiting the holding of trucks and prohibiting overtime during a pandemic which has left the service short staffed and increased its parcel volume 50% to 60%, dejoy is almost guaranteeing delayed mail. The mail stacks up for weeks and then ballots could stack up. If it continues….at the end….”the USPS has failed”. What to do with a failed USPS? Why, privatize it, of course. How transparent. And then dejoy can exercise his Amazon stock options, before Amazon buys up the agency. dejoy will be investigated for having those options and for having $30 to $70 Million in stock in his former company which has, in the past, contracted with the USPS. He should also be charged with violating U S Title18 which prohibits delaying mail, but probably won’t be.

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  44. MATTBOY, why would anyone do that? Normally the whole point of posting this sort of question in this forum is either to do some political trolling or to avoid doing research which after all is disturbingly close to actual work.

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  45. RexSB. Yes. Lots of photos like that on social media. Plus there is a map showing the locations where they removed 671 high capacity sorting machines. That’s the bigger issue. Not letting sorting happen at local stations

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  53. so – YOU obtained an alternative explanation. what makes YOU think it is correct ? YOU ask other people to “settle down” because YOU believe that YOU are so far above everyone else that they should listen to YOU ?
    Your arrogance alone is reason enough to discount your opinion.

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  56. A quick look at the USPS website shows that Patterson has been removed from the collection box list. There’s no note saying it’s temporary, it was simply removed from the lost.
    A quick search of news (various sources both left and right leaning) tie Trump to the removals nationwide primarily in blue states. And a search of YouTube has the footage of him admitting he’s tied to it. So yeah, there probably will be more outrage as we get closer to the election, as there should be when the President is boldly and openly interfering with it. No matter whether you vote Red or Blue, that should raise the ire of anyone who loves this nation and considers themselves a patriot. Being a patriot means putting the country first, NOT blind allegiance to any leader (which is actually unpatriotic). Trump’s war on USPS to affect the election is unpatriotic at least and outright criminal at worst. (This said by the child of war veteran whose own child is now in the military).

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  57. KEYT had a statement from the regional post master who stated something along the lines that the boxes were being removed due to financial reasons… I couldnt find the statement on their site but it was on the 6pm newscast last night with Tracey Lehr. So when the USPS makes a statement that its not temp, not due to vandalism and can be attributed to financial cuts and cutbacks, you can assume that this is happening from the top down and that the amount of disinformation out in the wild, is on purpose and by design.
    —————————————————————-REMINDER————————————————– The USPS is a service. Not a business. There is no mandate to be profitable.

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  59. If you are smart enough and willing to put in the effort, every detail of their business is laid out in their quarterly and annual reports. But you would have to actually read them, analyze them and understand them to come to a proper conclusion on where their “profits” lie and their investments fall. But for people like you, its much easier to just hear some talking head tell you what to think rather than actually educate yourself… See a problem here? I do… And for the record: every business in the US is subsidized by the US government in one form or another… Every single one. (think infrastructure)

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  60. Two material misstatements posted here need correction: US Postal service is not mandated by the US constitution. The Constitution only grants Congress the power to establish a postal delivery and postal roads system. This was originally intended to allow a revenue raising option for the new Republic, since there as no mandatory income tax at that time. Hate seeing the torches and pitchforks come out over the removal of a few postal boxes based upon lies. Makes one wonder what is really going on when false information so easily supercedes the facts. A great case study going on right now on this one issue: tracking rumor to hysteria to mob outrage. At a time when “universal vote by mail” itself is the worrisome topic.

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  62. As an at-risk older person who’s already sick, I don’t go into stores or public indoor spaces. I have not since March. I use(d) that drop box regularly. I am trying to avoid the contact and expense of replacing my residential mailbox with a locking mailbox, at least for now. My workaround was important mail would get dropped there. I can drive downtown or to the Storke Road distribution center instead, if those drop boxes are still there. This is infuriating,

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  63. CelesteBarber, we all know your ties with Breitbart and Fox News. Are you trying to stir more controversy to get another interview, or are you getting paid to disseminate false Information and agitate? Its obvious you lied about asking a postal worker about the mailboxes, all evidence points elsewhere. Are you trying to remain relevant in some way?

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  64. Where was everyone’s OUTRAGE when Obamas post master general removed more than 12,000 collection boxes from 2011-2016? Why did Obama create voter suppression like this and interfere in elections?.?.?…ohhhhhhhhhhhh, its only important NOW 🙂 I cant wait for November when the levels of derangement goes to 11, this site will be fun to read…. https://www.uspsoig.gov/blog/where-have-all-collection-boxes-gone.

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  65. Because the US Postal SERVICE is a service that helps all of us, it costs money. Do we look at another service–say, the military–and say it loses $700 billion annually? Am completely fed up with the shenanigans of this administration, including its cronies and relatives in positions for which they lack minimally adequate qualifications.

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  69. Fact: The downtown main SB post office has had multiple incidents of people driving up and dropping sticky cards on strings into the slot and “fishing” for whatever mail in the box they can draw back out. A teller showed me a photo of one of the contraptions that the perp accidentally dropped into the box and it was collected with the mail the next morning. Now I try to always drop my mail into the box before the last evening pickup. If the boxes are going to be replaced with a more secure style that would be a welcome change, but surely it would be appropriate to WAIT until the replacements were ready.

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  70. Because we do not learn adequate math–I would offer that we consider the mail processing of non-poll place people’s votes, ( proposed in the multi-millions), which also may not have a post-mark (that leads us to a crime) and may be deliberately delayed by the chronically angry PO Workers–treated terribly for what they already do. The union now is angry with cuts based on Amazon pressures and issues. Delays in delivering other things–food, medicine, money creates a serious problem for those already disabled, sick, and struggling.
    More polling places will get people out of the house socially and civil –can be carefully scheduled, and they already are social -distanced– you stand back, no one touches your ballot. It goes into a box and wait! It also give senior jobs. Absentee ballots are different and also add to the load, of what could be illegal ballots. (Voter rolls are often obsolete, names stolen of the dead) Mail is often in open areas.
    These are Non-partisan and civic opportunities and young non-voters could assist. They will be masked. Neighborhood voting is a social break as well. Harvesting in California has resulted in a one party government with very little representation and dissent possible. Do we want that on a national level? No voice? Hello China? We independents are the way we vote because of this proposed nonsense, having little to do with safety. Stacking the deck is even more dangerous to our US health and culture. Voting is the right of citizens of a society. Let’s preserve that. And citizens can create good bipartisan programs, and new citizenship paths when politics is not inflamed, playing win-lose games like today. Actually lose-lose if you know Math.

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  71. All of those commenting that they asked USPS and got a variety of answers of the boxes being cleaned or refurbished or removed due to theft, etc. These are simply incorrect, even if an employee told you that. Local reporters, city leaders, and legislators are asking the head of local USPS branches and have yet to get an official answer.

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  72. folks – this is what scares me – with large numbers of people trying to vote in person, a very diabolical situation may occur. it wouldn’t be difficult for a “disagreement” of some sort to happen and thereby justify the arrival of police, national guard, i.e. anybody with weaponry. weaponry begats weaponry. moreover, it would be easy to pay people to start such fights.
    yes – this is a bit paranoid, but the consequences are dire. we MUST take a defensive posture on this matter.
    like many other, i am a permanent voter-by-mail and have been for many years. after getting my ballot, it will be filled out and driven personally to the county elections office. i do not trust usps, under the present “leadership”, to get it there. moreover, i will call the elections office to see if i can pick it up personally – without having to depend at all the the “new usps”.
    let’s face it – michael cohen warned us that trump will never leave office peacefully. let’s just hope it isn’t innocent people’s blood that will be shed. there will be blood —

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  74. Trump Derangement Syndrome is a condition that appears only in a mind that has been repeatedly nibbled at by Fox News. Unblinking confused stares, Confederate flags, and red hats made in China are some of the symptoms.

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  80. FACT: A report from the USPS IG from August 2016 shows that over 12,000 mailboxes were removed in the prior 5 years under the Obama Administration. Standard procedure in managing costs as remote mailboxes are incrementally underutilized. Obama’s attempt to suppress the vote in 2016 was a resounding success!!

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  85. General–exactly. Even Trump’s own committee investigating voter fraud under the extremist right winger and Trump puppet Chris Kobach failed to find anything and was disbanded–by Trump.
    The number of total morons out there who still believe the fake voter fraud claims is astounding.

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  86. MP805–you don’t understand who benefits from voter suppression. Poor people, young people and POC tend to vote Democratic.
    Older white people with more money and time (that’s me) tend to vote GOP (that’s not me).

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  88. I actually support efforts to streamline the USPS and make it more cost-effective, but as it is an essential service for elections, the decisions cannot affect the ballot delivery. Is there a way to achieve both goals? Removing any boxes outside of existing post offices cannot be justified in any way, however.

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  90. Dude, what are you talking about? The issue is the slow down of the mail causes the ballots to NOT BE RECEIVED in time. Everyone knows they can request a mail-in-ballot. What has changed is the time frame that the USPS is now working with. What used to be 2-3 days, is now 2-3weeks. For the people who choose to mail their ballot, it may not be receive in time to be counted… Add in the influx of a Pandemic’s voting by mail increase and you have a problem. A manufactured problem by Trump who cannot win without cheating. The man literally says this out loud almost daily…

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Brush Fire on Harris Grade

Sirens on Highway 101?