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TRANSCRIPT OF WVXY-FM RADIO SHOW 3 Feb 2025

Lucy:
For more than two years, Chuck Klein says he got his mail delivered to a mailbox on his property line in Brown County. When packages were too big for the box, the mail carrier brought them to Klein's house, but Klein says delivery to that mailbox stopped abruptly, and he's suing to get it back. This is Cincinnati edition on wvxu. I'm Lucy may Joining me now to discuss the case, the challenges of rural mail delivery and the important role the Postal Service has played in American history are Richard John Columbia University professor and author of the book, Spreading the news the American Postal System from Franklin to Morse. Thanks for being here, Richard. Cincinnati Enquirer, investigative reporter. Dan horn, welcome back, Dan.

Dan, you reported on this federal court case that could have major implications for the US Postal Service. Let's hear from Chuck Klein. He's the man at the center of this case, and I talked with him and asked him to explain his problem.

Chuck:
The Post Office allowed me to move my mailbox from a group mailing place to my property line in 2014 and that was fine. They delivered mail to that location for about two and a half years until my neighbor, who no longer lives here, had a confrontation with the carrier and refused to yield the roadway to the carrier, a violation of both state and federal laws. Instead of reporting this to law enforcement authorities. He just told his supervisor, the Toastmaster for Georgetown, and his supervisor, the Toastmaster for Georgetown, and they stopped delivering mail to my mailbox. After a couple of days, I called and asked, and the Toastmaster said, well, the driver said the road's unsafe and you'll have to move your mailbox back to the cluster, which is about four tenths of a mile away. After two and a half years they've been delivering and all of a sudden the road's unsafe. That seemed arbitrary and capricious to me, but there wasn't much I could do about it. And after some back and forth and appeals to his supervisor, who was just a cya. They refused to allow me to keep my box at my property line, and I had to move it.

Lucy:
Chuck also explained why this is such a big deal for him.

Chuck:
The significance of this move is that if the box is at my property line, it will be within one half mile of my house. And according to the postal rules, if a package doesn't fit in the box, or if it requires my signature, they have to bring it to the door. So moving the box from my property line back out that four tenths of a mile to the cluster boxes takes it away from that half mile, meaning that every time there's a package that is too large for the box or requires my signature, they just leave a note in the box, and I have to make a 10 mile round trip to the Georgetown post office to pick it up. Now I'm 82 years old, and not only is that a big deal. But now we're ordering so much more stuff mail order that we're getting things by mail. And it's there's a lot of trips to the post office. Now we try to organize the mail order so that they don't ship large things, or at least combine orders and make a large box out of it. We make separate orders.

Lucy:
Dan, this is a very specific case, obviously, but rural postal delivery can be a problem for people in general explain how and how the US government has been looking to change rural delivery.

Dan:
Yeah, Chuck's case is very specific to him, but these kinds of issues pop up in rural areas pretty frequently, and the post office has made no bones in the last few years that they are looking at ways to make themselves more efficient by streamlining their operation in some of these rural areas. And part of that would be adding more of these kind of cluster boxes that Chuck mentioned there and and also possibly slowing delivery in rural areas. Whereas, you know, they have a set time frame where they expect mail delivery to be done in a certain number of days, depending where you live, they're talking about maybe allowing more time for rural mail, which would mean people get their mail a little later in some of these rural areas. So there's a number of things that people are looking at, or the Postal Service is looking at, and they, you know, they, they serve about 160 plus million addresses nationwide and beyond. And they, you know, about 40 plus million of those are in rural areas. So this, this could affect a lot of people.

Lucy:
Richard, you wrote this book examining the history of the US Postal Service. What set the Postal Service? Part in its early years, and why was it viewed as being so important by the founders?

Richard:
Well, the founders were concerned about the circulation of information and commerce in public affairs. So, in fact, they were not concerned about the circulation of parcels, items weighing more than four pounds. And I assume those are the most of the items we're talking about were not admitted into the US Mail until 1913 United States was one of the last countries to make that change, and that was in part because of this, founders commitment to facilitating the circulation of information, news, newspapers, magazines, and in part because in the late 19th century, you had a powerful lobby. Country Store keepers were allied with wholesalers in big cities that wanted the Express companies to do the all important last mile, the emergence of rural free delivery the 1890s farmers, rural American residents, rural America got together, worked with their lawmakers, and said, we really want delivery to our door, which at that time was common in urban areas. They finally succeeded for parcels in 1913 so this was the this is the 20th century problem, but it is built on the 18th century presumption that the government has a civic mandate to provide access to information or to physical items to the entire population on a relatively equal basis.

Lucy:
We're talking about the US Postal Service, its importance in American history and what the future could hold for it. Do you have questions or comments? Give us a call at 513419, 7100, or you can email talk at W, V, X, u.org, now Chuck Klein says the Postal Service has declared his road unsafe, but he gets deliveries from other services.

Chuck:
You can ask FedEx a propane delivery, anybody else, nobody's had a problem driving down this road. They've been delivering here for as long as we've been here. The roads been there over 100 years. There's no record anywhere of any accidents ever occurring on that four tenths portion of the road. So the post office is just arbitrary and capriciously decided that they don't want to deliver to me. They're going to declare the road unsafe, and they won't define what unsafe is.

Lucy:
I did contact the US Postal Service to ask if a representative would participate in our conversation. The Postal Service declined, but a spokesperson sent a statement that reads, in part: “Our policy is to protect our employees, customers and property by avoiding unsafe situations. These situations include, but are not limited to inadequate roadways and lack of turnaround locations to avoid unnecessary backing at delivery points. USPS identified safety concerns with the request for a mailbox placement on Hillman Ridge Road. It has been deemed unsafe due to the roadway being too narrow, and raises concerns addressed above.” And you can find the full statement on our website, wvxu.org, Dan, what kind of unsafe conditions are postal workers dealing with, generally, and do you know any more about the postal services concerns in Chuck Klein's case in particular?

Dan:
Well, I went out to see Chuck when this was going on. And you know that road is it's a narrow road. It isn't it's in good condition. It's paved all the way, but it's about as wide as a as a large pickup truck, so two cars cannot pass each other clearly on that road. So one had, would have to pull off to the side, and there is room in most, most of that area, to do that. So in his particular case, it's narrow. You could see it would, it's not ideal, but it, you know, it's not, it doesn't appear to be obviously dangerous in any other way, but that, you know, the post office runs into this sort of thing, you know, all the time, and there are other rural areas where they're on gravel roads, they're on dirt roads. And I think one of the things that Chuck's case touches on is this tension between Professor John mentioned, this is tension between the mission of the of the post office, which is to deliver mail to, you know, all of these addresses all over the country, but at the same time, they're under increasing pressure to operate as a business and to be profitable, or at least as as profitable as they're capable of being. But you know, they do things that are inherently inefficient, and part of that inefficiency is delivering to these remote locations. So there's this tension going on that Chuck, Chuck's case really kind of gets at, I think.

Lucy:
Richard, can you speak a little bit more to that tension just kind of that whole operating it as a business that that seems to run counter to what the founders. That in mind, doesn't it?

Richard:
Yes, this is a remarkably illustrative case in the 19th century in the United States, unlike Great Britain, strong presumption endorsed by lawmakers that the post office would provide everyone relatively comparable level of service independent of cost. This was called the postal principle. So for example, postage stamp would be the same New York to Brooklyn, New York to Alaska. And there was great pride in that principle. And some delivery was very expensive. Some delivery made no sense economically at all. As late as the 1950s a major investigation of the post office concluded explicitly, the post office is not a business, it's a service. There was a shift in 1970 with the establishment of up USPS, and it was a move toward the idea of kind of cost benefit economic analysis, but that claim has always run counter to you want to call them inefficiencies, or you want to call it social provision for ordinary Americans who don't happen to live in thickly settled areas, that the government continues to provide all kinds of services for which there is no clear economic rationale, and the founders would have said there shouldn't have to be an economic rationale, because we are providing a service for all Americans, which is essential for collective well being. So it's a genuine tension. Safety may well be part of the issue, but there's also the question of cost, if you can get all these cluster boxes instead of delivering presumably that's going to help bottom line of the post office understood from the point of view of economic efficiency. The historical observation, or the historians perspective, is that this is not the way the founders envision the post office, and this is not the way it's operated for much of its history.

Lucy:
We'll continue our conversation after a short break, and later in the program, we'll examine the allure of breaking video game records. This is Cincinnati edition.
Lucy:
This is Cincinnati edition on W, V, X, U, I'm Lucy May. We're continuing our conversation about the US Postal Service, the challenges of rural delivery and what the future holds for the institution. My guests are Richard John Columbia University, professor and author of the book spreading the news the American Postal System from Franklin to Morse and Cincinnati. Enquirer, investigative reporter Dan horn. You can join the conversation by calling 513419, 7100, or you can email talk@wvxu.org Dan, Chuck Klein told me he tried for years to get the Postal Service to reverse this decision. He thought he was out of luck, until a US Supreme Court decision, the chevron decision. Tell us about that decision and why it opened the door for Chuck's lawsuit, and what kind of implications this lawsuit could have if Chuck Klein wins.

Dan:
Yeah, so they're making an interesting argument here that you know, the Supreme Court, last year ruled in what was called the chevron doctrine, an older Supreme Court case that basically says that government agencies could make reasonable rules that are not spelled out in the law passed by Congress and signed by the President, so giving agencies and departments flexibility to, you know, enact the law passed by Congress. What the Supreme Court said in that case, in overturning that case, was that, no, actually, there's a lot less flexibility there than than these agencies and departments have been operating under in the past. So if that's the case, then in theory, a lot of these agencies are limited to literally the letter of the law. And in this case, because the Postal Service's mission is to, you know, deliver the mail, and the most you know, to all these addresses. You know, Chuck's argument is that they just can't make up a rule that says, I think there's a safety concern, and I'm not going to deliver it to that box anymore. I think, you know, it, I think that this is not efficient to deliver directly to the home, so we're not going to do it. So that's part of their argument, is that the Postal Service exceeded its authority to to make a decision like this, and therefore Chuck should have that mail delivered to his box right, right by his driveway, like he used to.

Lucy:
Do what if he wins? Dan, are there implications for the postal system? You know, way beyond Chuck

Dan:
It could be. I mean, in theory, this could, could kind of be a referendum on this tension that we were just talking about between, is the Postal Service a service, or is it a business, and if it must operate strictly as a service, then a lot of these conversations. Conversations about operating as a business are kind of kind of go out the window, because it's going to have to deliver in a way that it considers inefficient and potentially unsafe, if that, if that's the case in some of these rural areas, so it could have implications well beyond Chuck's driveway

Lucy:
And Richard we talked about this idea of the postal service operating as a business. There's been a lot of pressure on the Postal Service for several decades now, and there's even been talk about privatizing the Postal Service, something that President Trump has talked about several times. What, what in your view would that privatization effort mean in terms of kind of how that would jibe with what the founders had in mind.

Richard:
The idea that the Postal Service could be privatized was discussed in the 1840s it was rejected. It has been picked up again by libertarians 1880s Second World War rejected again, and it's rejected for many reasons, but they boil down to one simple fact, that Congress does not want to give up control over the Postal Service, the chevron ruling. It's a fascinating wrinkle on on on administrative law, because a good case can be made that the founders, beginning in 1792 wanted Congress to be the key player. That's why the network expanded so quickly. That's why the subsidies for newspapers and magazines stayed in place. That's why it expanded its mandate over time, to city delivery, then to rural delivery, then to parcel delivery. So without Chevron, the post office is dependent more directly on the wishes of Congress. Congress says a lot of things at different points in time, but Congress has never been willing to eliminate Saturday delivery. They've not been willing to close lots and lots of post offices. Whether they will in the current administration is a question. A lot of those post offices, a lot of the special services, like those that Chuck skin, let's call it a special service if you don't go to a cluster mailbox. Just for the sake of argument, those are popular with constituencies that are in outside of the metropolitan area, and congressmen who represent those districts recognize that I'm a historian. I don't do the future, but there could be a popular movement to challenge now that Chevron deference is gone, to challenge the economistic mindset that has kind of taken over certain corners with the Postal Service. Historically, there's been very little popular support for running the post office like a business, which is not to say that there have not been groups that have called for it, and which is not the big exception is the 1840s when the institution was in crisis. That's a long time ago. But having said all that without Chevron deference, this is a very ingenious, very interesting moment and a very ingenious court challenge, and I'm curious to see how it's going to unfold.

Lucy:
Dan, what's next with Chuck's case?

Dan:
Well it's in federal court, so it's going to go on a while, in all likelihood, unless it unless it settles. So they're they're just they're just beginning. They're setting schedules and and there's been no arguments. There's been no other briefs. And in fact, the last time I checked, there had not yet been a formal response, written response in the court record from the post office yet. So it'll be interesting to see how it progresses. But federal cases typically move very slow, and as Professor John said, it's we're at a kind of interesting hinge point here on what the post office is going to look like down the road. So I'm not sure what kind of argument they're going to make when it comes down to it.
Lucy:
Okay, well, I know you'll keep following it. I've been talking with Richard John Columbia University, professor and author of the book spreading the news the American Postal System from Franklin to Morse and Cincinnati. Enquirer, investigative reporter, Dan Horn, thank you both so much for your time today.