GLENDALE : Postmaster Meets With Customers

Glendale Postmaster James Brouillard set up shop in his lobby with coffee and cookies Thursday morning, welcoming praise and criticism for the mail delivery which he has overseen for the past year.

“I would say that nine out of 10 people have been satisfied,” Brouillard declared at the end of his three-hour session during which he met 150 to 200 people.

Handling complaints from the public has always been a big part of his job, but most are dealt with over the phone.

“I think that it surprises people to see a postmaster out here,” Brouillard said. The questions centered on mail delivery, but some people asked about the changes going on at the main Glendale post office which is being renovated. The building, put up in the 1930s, is being restored to its original look.

“A lot of people who do have anything positive or negative to say often don’t take the time to call me,” Brouillard said.

Glenda Womack complained to Brouillard that she had stopped mail delivery while on vacation last year and picked up her mail at the post office when she returned. But then a couple of months later she was delivered mail that had been sent to her in July.

Bills and get-well cards sent to her for time she had earlier spent in a hospital came months late, she said.

Did it help to talk to the postmaster?

“No, not really,” she said. “He said if it happens anymore to let him know, but that’s after the fact.”

“I would say that that is a very unusual situation,” Brouillard said.

Stacia Crane, manager of consumers for the field district of Van Nuys, said that two more similar informal sessions are being scheduled for next week in Studio City and at Valley Village in North Hollywood.

The talks, which have been used more heavily on the East Coast, are intended to break the image of the Postal Service being an impersonal bureaucracy.

“We’re the friendly post office,” she said.