Storm Mountain, Colorado, Community Information

Sent: Thu 1/7/2021 8:02 AM
From: Amanda Carian
Subject: The Drake Post Office Situation

Hello Storm Mountain Community and friends in Glen Haven,

For over a year, I have been communicating with Michael Mattson, our USPS Consumer Relations person in Denver ‘not’ representing Storm Mountain or any community, just as a very concerned and upset paying P.O. Box holder. What Michael ‘was’ able to help the Drake post office with:

• enforcing cease-and-desist orders on Estes Park USPS management last year this time when they were enforcing all postal clerks to return-to-sender any letter or parcel that specifically did not spell out “P.O Box”. Cheryl had been coming to Drake and taking Keile’s sorted mail OUT of our boxes to maliciously return anything she could if it did not say ‘P.O. Box’ on it. This practice of hers is recently now back in full-swing as many of us have experienced, especially when UPS or FedEx transfer a package to USPS – they are just getting sent back.
• enforcing cease-and-desist orders on Estes Park USPS management (Cheryl/Kim) earlier this year when they banned Kiele from working in our post office and were making him work in Estes, Allenspark and other places out of spite and their inability to hire and retain workers due to their abusive management practices.
• Michael successfully had a USPS investigation launched and it was concluded that we on Storm Mountain and Glen Haven ARE entitled to free P.O. Boxes called “e-boxes”. The problem now is they must have e-boxes for all properties that could be built out and there is not enough room in the Post Offices so silver gang boxes would be needed and those must be placed on public property…..so where to put them is the issue. For Storm Mountain, all property from Hwy 43 to the top is ‘private’ property. (I understand there is a pile of these boxes behind the Glen Haven post office.) We just need this work to push forward – the decision is done and in our favor.
• Michael successfully got the USPS to agree we get a new post office that is supposed to be located next to the River Forks on their property – Covid issues have pushed out the timing of that implementation but the decision has been made. Hopefully the River Forks does not evict the post office before a new portable building shows up to be the ‘real’ post office.
• Michael has just moved to a new position in USPS and I have been contacted by his replacement. Michael fully agrees we’ve been shafted by Estes Park and Denver and will continue to fight our fight with us as he can. 80% of our issue is the management in USPS Management in Estes Park and 20% is USPS Denver Ops.

80% Estes Park USPS Management

• Michael has forwarded to USPS Denver Ops over 70 local letters of support for Keile and the outstanding service he provided us.
• Michael also forwarded over 35 examples of Cheryl Jiles verbally abusing her employees, us patrons, and Cheryl even physically punching a patron in the face in the Estes Park post office. Denver Ops HR will do nothing.
• Michael has opened several cases against Cheryl for her verbal and other attacks on Keile that were not in line with USPS policy. The cases go nowhere in USPS Denver Ops.
• I stood in our Drake post office this past July with Keile and the Denver Ops manager, Jamil. Jamil told us that Keile would be getting promoted to Estes Park and then be able to select his replacement for our Drake Post Office. Jamil moved to another state a couple weeks later, Cheryl found out about what was happening, Keile was not promoted and Cheryl took it out on Keile verbally, and continued to cook up reasons to ‘write him up’ that went against his postal worker record.
• Keile is not at our post office solely because of Cheryl Jiles and Kim, the Estes Park Postmaster. This is not a ‘Covid’ issue as they have been so easily tossing around. Michael also received information of the continuous revolving door of employees whom Cheryl and Kim hire – the new employees quit in 2 weeks or less due Cheryl’s extreme verbal abuse and demanding her policies are followed versus the USPS policies.

20% USPS Denver Operation

• In Drake we only receive mail from Denver Ops 4-5 days a week instead of the 6 days we are entitled to as citizens and paying customers. I know these numbers to be true from checking in every day for months with Keile as to whether we got mail from Denver Ops or not. Denver Ops either “forgets to put our mail on the truck” or “puts our mail on the wrong truck.” Michael opened a multitude of ‘cases’ that the Denver Ops management was supposed to investigate but they’ve investigated nothing, throwing it all under the ‘Covid bus.’ Yes, there have been times when USPS Denver Ops has been operating at 30% of their employees, but not all of the time from last March to now.

Essentially my opinion to Michael was that if we could get Kiele to be supported properly and stay in our post office we could deal better with not consistently getting mail from Denver Ops. Michael agreed but cannot force Denver Ops HR to deal with Cheryl/Kim, even after over a year of work and mountains of direct cases and evidence against Cheryl, which she in turn took out on Kiele.

Per an earlier suggestion on this group, our only hope is a hard push to get our Drake post office out from under Estes Park USPS management and put under Loveland USPS. I am investigating if there is a proper way to do this but Michael’s first guess is it literally will take an ‘act of Congress’, but let’s do it! (If Congress will not move us maybe they can get us new USPS management in Estes Park.)

I will investigate if we can do an online petition that we in turn can send to ALL of our congress people. I and others have individually reached out to our congress people but we will need an en-mass approach to get their attention to do more than just ‘send an inquiry’ to the USPS who will simply reply this is all due to Covid. Certainly go forward and do what you’d like to do, but I will share info on getting a petition signed virtually as soon as I find a solution. We must wake up our Congress-folks to either move us under Loveland USPS or remove the USPS Estes Park Management with competent people who really want to provide a postal SERVICE.

If anyone has ever done a virtual petition or has time to do this or help with communications to our congress folks when we are ready, please let me know – would love the help!

To our friends in Glen Haven who have also suffered under this same Estes Park USPS tyranny, you are welcome to learn from us and use whatever help you as well.

Best regards,
Amanda

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