PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The U.S. Postal Service is responding after a photo of mailboxes being removed from a Portland neighborhood went viral.
The photo, which was tweeted out over the weekend, shows at least four mailboxes already in the back of a truck as a fifth one was being loaded.
USPS spokesperson David Rupert told KOIN 6 News the mailboxes in the Northeast Portland neighborhood had been vandalized and were being replaced “with newer, more secure models.”
Rupert said some locations that had side-by-side mailboxes were being consolidated with only one mailbox but added that “every location that had a collection box will keep a collection box.”
“This is a normal operational procedure to make sure the majority of our boxes are in in high traffic areas and convenient for customers. Additionally, we still have carriers come to every single home six days a week and they collect any outgoing mail that is available,” he said. “We are the most trusted Federal organization and the most trusted brand in America. We take that trust very seriously and the Postal Service is fully committed to serving Oregon.”
Earlier on Thursday in an interview on Fox Business Network, President Donald Trump said he was blocking funds to make it harder for the Postal Service to have resources for an expected increase in mail-in ballots casted for the presidential election in November.
“If we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money,” Trump told Maria Bartiromo regarding two amendments that Democrats are asking for in a relief package. “That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting; they just can’t have it.”