ICYMI Video: Blumenthal Questions U.S. Postmaster General DeJoy on the Future of Unused or Underutilized Postal Service Sites in Connecticut

[HARTFORD, CT] – In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, questioned U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy yesterday on unused or underutilized United States Postal Service (USPS) sites in Connecticut that are negatively affecting small businesses, economic development, and local residents.

In Ridgefield, Connecticut, an often vacant USPS parking lot remains a problem for the town, surrounding businesses, and Ridgefield residents, who cannot use the parking lot to visit other businesses. The lot is underutilized or not used at all for USPS business despite claims from USPS that the parking lot is necessary “during our peak holiday season when mail and package volumes dramatically increase.” During today’s hearing, Blumenthal presented DeJoy with a photograph of the clearly empty lot from December of last year. In 2021, Ridgefield’s mail-handling operations moved to the USPS annex in Danbury, dramatically reducing operations.

Blumenthal pressed DeJoy to commit to looking into the issue and consider selling unused or underutilized Connecticut sites which would result in more revenue for the USPS.

“In Norwalk, they are in the process of redeveloping their downtown now in real time. In Milford, they are redeveloping a downtown. They want to provide you with reasonable alternatives for the postal property, if it ever is going to be used. I could go through a number of towns where in real time, right now there are businesses, taxpayer interests, and your customers at stake. Why can't we move on some of these properties rather than the Post Office in effect stonewalling the people of Connecticut?” asked Blumenthal.

Postmaster General DeJoy committed to joining Blumenthal in Connecticut to visit the Ridgefield Postal Service site, among other unused or underutilized sites. Blumenthal followed up on DeJoy’s commitment sending him a formal invitation letter to join him in a visit to Ridgefield during the winter holiday season. 

Video of Blumenthal and Post Master General DeJoy’s exchange can be found here. A transcript is available below. 

Blumenthal: Thanks for having this hearing, thank you, Mr. Dejoy, for being here today.

When you were last here in April, you and I talked a little bit about Ridgefield, Connecticut—a small town, but important to me and the people of Connecticut, along with other towns where the United States Postal Service has property that is essentially unused and where in fact the Postal Service could save some money—maybe not billions of dollars but every penny saved, as you know from your business experience, is important to corporation. When we spoke in April, you promised to look into the Ridgefield property personally, but all you did afterward was cite a September 2023 letter from one of your government relations people, Scott Slusher. Is he still with you?

DeJoy: Yes.

Blumenthal: Is he here today?

DeJoy: Yes.

Blumenthal: Good morning, Mr. Slusher. Mr. Slusher told me in that letter, “During our peak holiday season when mail and package volumes dramatically increase, the lot will be needed to accommodate the foreseeable needs of our customers and the additional seasonal employees we employ to meet those needs.” When was the last time, Mr. Dejoy, you visited Ridgefield, Connecticut?

DeJoy: I don’t know that I’ve ever been to Ridgefield, Connecticut.

Blumenthal: Has Mr. Slusher ever visited? I take it from your non-answer that he hasn’t.

DeJoy: If you’re asking me if Mr. Slusher—I don’t keep up with the travel.

Blumenthal: You don’t know? No.

Let me show you a photo of that lot. Last December, December 27, during the peak holiday season. It’s empty. It’s empty every day in December. It’s empty every day—every day— during the year. That lot is unused. The small businesses on Main Street want to make that lot available for parking—they don’t want to take anything away from the United States Postal Service—and the non-responsiveness—I’m tempted to say stonewalling—of the Postal Service in response to their and my request, the town of Ridgefield, so that that property can be used for parking, enabling more customers for those small businesses on Main Street, I think is really unacceptable. Will you come to Ridgefield?

DeJoy: Sure.

Blumenthal: We’ll set it up with your office during the peak holiday season.

DeJoy: I make trips, people invite me. I’ll come to Ridgefield.

Blumenthal: You’ll love Ridgefield. It’s especially beautiful in the peak holiday season. And while you’re in Ridgefield, maybe we could also visit Milford, Norwalk, East Hartford, where there are properties that could be sold by the Postal Service that are essentially unused—the Postal Service could make some money—and right now, it is essentially refusing even to respond as you have done essentially on Ridgefield.

DeJoy: First of all, I will take the whole tour. I’ll come up. But, we are in a process—we have these requests throughout the whole nation, and we are in a process of looking at 31,000 facilities across the nation trying to determine what we are going to stay in and not stay in, where we are going to park electric vehicles, and so forth. So we are in a status of evaluation. Okay? We will get through this as we work through our whole network where our sorting and delivery centers are going to be, what are retail configurations are going to look like, and so forth. And then that will be the time for us to move out in terms of looking at the monetization.

Blumenthal: But the problem is, Mr. Dejoy—and I apologize for interrupting, but my time is limited as you all know—that in Norwalk, they are in the process of redeveloping their downtown. Now. In real time.

DeJoy: Senator, that is everywhere—

Blumenthal: In Milford, they are redeveloping a downtown. They want to provide you with reasonable alternatives for the Postal property, if it ever is going to be used. In Litchfield—I mean, I could go through a number of towns where in real time, right now, there are businesses and taxpayer interests, and your customers are at stake. Why can't we move on some of these properties right away, rather than the Post Office, in effect, with all due respect, stonewalling the people of Connecticut?

DeJoy: I don’t know that we are— I do believe that we need to, and have started a process to, engage. I just was with a couple Congressmen in their towns looking at some of these projects. I do think we need to get into a better dialogue, more meaningful dialogue, with local constituents, quicker in terms of the decisions that we need to make and the reasons why we can’t relinquish or can relinquish the property. I think we need to get better at that. It does not change the answer, in many, many cases, because we do need many of these properties. So, I don’t know, I mean, do you want me to look into this further?

Blumenthal: Well, you promised to look into it in April.

DeJoy: And we gave you an answer.

Blumenthal: And you gave me an answer to refer to a September 2023 letter, which frankly, I find insulting.

DeJoy: Well why do you find it insulting? If we feel we need the property? We need the property, we need the property.

Blumenthal: Because what you say is absolutely untrue, that it is used in the peak holiday season. And if anybody paid attention, gave it the slightest care –

DeJoy: That is not true. Because, Senator, when I got here, we added a thousand locations during peak to do deliveries. Because of some of the changes that we have made in our operational processes, that is coming down. That might have been, we ran a lot of additional operations during the peak season that were crazy and costly and deteriorated service. So in our process—I am now emptying buildings all over the country, but this is a process, I can’t just…

Blumenthal: Well, the process seems to be never ending.

DeJoy: Exactly.

Blumenthal: And the lack of an end means the Post Office, the United States Postal Service, is deprived of revenue that it needs, and it means insulting the people of the United States, who have an interest—your customers, not only in that revenue but also in the most effective use of property that belongs to the United States Postal Service. So I welcome your willingness to come visit.

DeJoy: Senator, if I give up a bill, I get booted out of a retail center where I am paying, let’s say, $300,000 a year. You know what the price of that is for me to go some place else today? Like $3 million a year. So I have to be careful with what we do with this real estate. There’s significant increases in value and also a whole cartel of opportunists that we have dealt with over the years at the Postal Service with regard to the centers, so that property in a downtown, if you want a Post Office or Postal Service, we are going through making–

Blumenthal: Are you aware that the Post Office moved out of Ridgefield? The office is no longer there. I would suggest that you really look into, as you promised you would do, the situation there personally, maybe ask—

DeJoy: Get rid of him.

Blumenthal: —Mr. Slusher to do an advanced visit so that you can be prepared when you come with me, and I appreciate your willingness to do so, but time is not on our side when it comes to those small businesses, whether it’s in Ridgefield or the interests of towns, Milford, Norwalk, Litchfield, East Hartford, where the property interests are not used properly. I apologize for going over my time, Mr. Chairman.

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