Local reps urge USPS to speed up creation of new Olathe post office

A bipartisan effort is underway to relocate and upgrade Olathe’s downtown post office, though the request by Congressional lawmakers may fall on deaf ears for the time being.

In a letter sent to the United States Postal Service Friday, Kansas senators Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall, and 3rd District representative Sharice Davids asked postmaster Louis DeJoy to work toward relocating the city’s post office. That same day, DeJoy resigned from his role. 

“We write regarding the proposed partnership between the USPS and Olathe, Kansas concerning the relocation of the downtown postal facility and construction of a new, efficient and modern facility in its place,” the letter states. “We wish to again express our strongest support for the project and remind you that each of us remains committed to following the process closely.”

The Olathe City Government announced plans during its last budgeting session in 2024 to relocate its downtown post office. There are two post offices in Olathe – the East Olathe branch at 15050 W 138th St, and the main branch, which is the one targeted for relocation, at 110 N Chestnut St. The main branch opened in 1981, about a block away from the original location constructed in 1938.

To achieve this goal, Olathe budgeted about $8 million dollars in its capital improvement plan over the next few years, but details are sparse. City spokesman Cody Kennedy told The Olathe Reporter earlier this March that there have been no updates since it was announced.

The decision to relocate was made during a time of increasing scrutiny on the USPS. The Kansas City region has been experiencing mail delays for at least the past four years. An audit was conducted on the East Olathe branch in May of 2021 following 1,276 customer inquiries related to package tracking and delivery recorded from November 2020 through January 2021.

The collection period of these inquiries began less than five months after DeJoy was appointed on June 16, 2020 — the first postmaster in nearly two decades who is not a career postal employee. As early as August of 2020, lawmakers called on the U.S. Postal Service to immediately reverse changes which caused delays in deliveries across the country, according to AP News.

These changes were felt especially strongly in the Kansas-Missouri region, where mail delivery times lag far behind national performance data and “substantially impacted residents and business owners in the area,” according to a letter to DeJoy by U.S. senators Roger Marshall, Jerry Moran, Eric Schmidtt and Josh Hawley.

Keller Daniel, who works at a law firm in Olathe and regularly deals with time-sensitive mail, said in an interview in July 2024 she noticed a huge shift in mail delivery times since DeJoy’s appointment.

“It used to be like 24 hours for local mail, or 48 hours. Now it’s closer to a week,” Daniel said.

In April 2024, after several attempts on the behalf of Missouri senators to investigate and improve the Kansas city mail system, Marshall questioned DeJoy and Inspector General Tammy Hull during a Senate hearing on oversight and concerns with USPS and the unreliability of mail services in the Kansas City area.

In the hearing, Marshall explained the reasoning for the post office relocation, describing how Olathe has a thriving downtown where the post office is located close to a railroad.

“The city would like to move that post office somewhere else, outside of town probably,” Marshall said. “You have a city that’s willing to cooperate, help pay for part of the situation. I think your operations would be more efficient if your drivers weren’t coming in and all that traffic jam as well.”

DeJoy responded that he wasn’t aware of the situation.