Scotts Valley PO Mail Delays Draw Concern
I am writing concerning service degradation at the Scotts Valley Post Office.
We recently mailed two Priority Mail packages at the Post Office: May 26 and July 20, 2026. Each of these packages was scanned into the system at Scotts Valley the following day (May 27 and July 21). Thinking that this was a local service issue needing correction, I attempted to speak with manager Robyn Kissler; she was not available.
In explaining the problem with window personnel, I was told that the truck schedules had been changed so that mail received during the day no longer was taken to the San Jose Distribution Center in the same evening to be postmarked, processed and routed to the destinations, but trucked the following morning instead.
All mail then is delayed by one day:
- 2-3 day Priority Mail becomes 3-4 day service.
- Express Mail? Who knows?
- Bill payments, tax payments, ballot returns, DMV registrations — items depending on a dated postmark — all delayed a day and subject to additional fees or disqualification by the recipient.
This service degradation may be more widespread, involving other Post Offices in Santa Cruz County, indeed the state and the country as well!
If this is to be the continuing service standard, the PICKUP TIME label should be changed to WE’LL EMPTY THE BOX, BUT IT AIN’T GOING ANYWHERE UNTIL TOMORROW. Your customers — the public — need to be aware.
I strongly urge you to re-establish same-day service, including processing and postmarking. Give us the service your reputation has had!
David Erickson
Scotts Valley
When Sacramento Calls the Shots
I have two things to express. Thing one: Does anyone else see the irony in the sentiment expressed by a letter in the July 31 Banner that opines: More stories on state-mandated multi-unit housing projects, especially without infrastructure upgrades, will allow more people to enjoy the Scotts Valley life?
Thing two: The state takes our property taxes and then underfunds Scotts Valley schools. The state mandates homeowners insurance then allows insurance corporations to manipulate the market and weasel out of claims. The state mandates high-density housing projects that allow corporate developers to destroy whole communities, without review by or concern for the people that actually live there and paid the taxes that have supported the existence of the state government in the first place.
Is anyone else getting tired of getting pushed around by the state? If only someone would fight for us.
Thomas Johnson
Scotts Valley
Democracy Depends on Trust
Free and fair elections have long been the pride of our nation, the envy of much of the rest of the world, yet something too many of us have taken for granted.
That changed in 2020 when a single influential man lost an election he had previously won four years before. Despite the lack of any substantive evidence to prove his case — and despite copious evidence to refute it — he has continued to wage a war of suspicion not against his political opponents, but against the very election system that enabled him to assume office twice. (Of course, the elections in 2016 and 2024 that he won are not in question; it is only the one he lost.)
All this would be laughable if the consequences were not so dire. By calling into question our election system, he has done nothing but sow seeds of doubt and suggest undemocratic “reforms” that would do little else but disenfranchise millions of legal American voters. All because he can’t accept that he lost an election.
If you’re really concerned about election security, talk to your friends and neighbors who volunteer as poll workers and ask them how much fraud they believe they witness. Or better yet, become one yourself. But if “do your own research,” as has been suggested, means accepting the loser’s discredited premise that there “may” be election fraud, I would suggest instead starting with the dozens of prior cases he filed — and lost.
As a former athlete, I learned early on that there’s no shame in losing a fair match. One can respect a graceful loser.
Jeff Bailey
Scotts Valley
