Posted by Armando Saldivar, KDBC 4 News

Severo Gaza was sworn in on Tuesday in front of friends, family and colleagues.  Garza is the 34th postmaster in El Paso's 156 years of service, and will oversee mail delivery to more than a quarter million locations, with  almost seven hundred employees.

With the responsibility of all those customers and employees comes plenty of concerns and complaints from residents.  Garza brings 19 years of experience in the postal system, and will need all that knowledge to tackle the problems in El Paso.  He's already been at the helm for almost three months, and says he's no stranger to the issues facing postal workers and the El Paso customers they serve.

"I'd be working.   I'm taking my lunch hour to come get my mail because by the time I get off, it's already closed" said Norma Jacquez, East El Paso resident.  Jacquez says she's never had problems with the postal service until now.   Three weeks ago she moved into a new subdivision in far east El Paso.   An area where she says mailboxes aren't even in place yet.   That means she's forced to go to the Sandy Creek Post Office everyday and wait in line to pick it up.  "They asked us to put a change of address, and my mail is still going to the old address, and I have to come down here for some mail and I'm just going back and it's just a mess" said Jacquez.

But Gaza says what may seem like a huge problem for customers are not necessarily hard to fix.   He says it's a matter of getting things reported in order for situations to be remedied. "We're looking at alternative resources as far as having alternative places where people can go get their mail, or mail.   I'm not at liberty to discuss those at the present time but I do want the people to know we are looking for alternatives and what we can do to better serve that area" said Gaza.

Others say there's also a problem with misdirected mail. Experiencing what they call "retaliation" from mail carriers who they say purposely put mail in the wrong box after receiving complaints. "I can tell you we will address that issue and if there's any retaliation, they need to notify us as well  because we won't tolerate that type of behavior" said Gaza.  Anyone with a concern or complaint about the post office can contact postmaster Gaza at his office at 84-01 Boeing drive and for general questions you can call 1-800-ASK-USPS.