Is your mail late? No answer from the Post Office

Mike Peters, (Bio) mpeters@greeleytribune.com
November 19, 2006

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Question -- The issue is the time of day that the post office delivers the mail to my box here in the west end of Alles Acres, and the neighbors in this general area. Very often, even on Saturday, my mail will arrive after 6:30 p.m. Today it arrived about 7:30 p.m. It may be that the postal workers are having to work double shifts because of a shortage of workers. It may be that they only have a certain number of delivery vehicles. Do you have a notion about this? Obviously, we're living with it, and the mail eventually comes, but I have been puzzled. This has been going on for more than a year.

Answer -- We called the Greeley Post Office, but the supervisor refused to answer our question and said we had to call the national post office hot line, which is 1-800-ASK-USPS. This launched a long adventure in drifting through the automatic phones, trying to explain to a recording that we were calling about mail being delivered late in the day in Greeley. Apparently, none of the automatic answering machines knew how to handle that question. Finally, we got a live person. When we asked why our mail delivery was so late in the day, she read from a statement: "We attempt to deliver all mail between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m." That was it. She didn't even ask where in the U.S. we were calling from. I guess we need to get used to late delivery.

Question-- I am calling regarding photo I.D.s for children to get their Medicaid and other issues re-instated, and my problem is, who do you go to? The Motor Vehicle Department said it is not set up to do this. The police department does not do it. I would like for the Tribune to find out where these mothers who are totally frustrated can go to get photo I.D.s of their children for this issue.

Answer -- We checked with several areas, and talked to the Social Services Office in west Greeley. Officials there said you need to go to the Driver's Licensing Test Center in downtown Greeley at 800 8th Ave. Although you said someone at the Greeley told you the department didn't take ID photos, we talked to the Northern Colorado Driver's Licensing Office, and we were told workers there are required to shoot ID photos and provide the IDs. You will need to take two forms of ID for both children such as a birth certificate and Social Security card. If they don't have the Social Security card, the parent's ID or driver's license can be used. One other note: It will be a long wait at the driver's license center, so bring something to keep the kids busy.