Cape post office halts transition to curbside boxes

The Cape Girardeau post office has reversed course and is no longer forcing new residents of established neighborhoods to put up curbside mailboxes.

"We're rethinking the whole thing. We're going to study it a bit more," said customer services manager Dan Strauss. "We're not totally abandoning it, but we want to re-evaluate it."

Over the past two years the post office has placed notices in mailboxes of new homeowners with door-side mailboxes, mostly in neighborhoods established before 1978. The notices said the new owner would be allowed to pick up mail only one time until a box was erected at the curbside or the edge of the yard.

The move was meant to save carriers time and effort by allowing them to walk in a straight line instead of up and down steps.

But last week acting postmaster Evelyn Tan-Todd decided to halt the program temporarily, Strauss said. Todd was out of the area Thursday and unavailable for comment. Former postmaster Mike Keefe, who initiated the program, was also unavailable.

Section 631.6 of the postal service's manual, which deals with conversion of mode of delivery, states: "customer signature must be obtained prior to any conversion ... owners who do not agree must be allowed to retain their current mode of delivery."

Homeowners in Cape Girardeau said they were not asked for a signature and were effectively coerced into moving their mailbox by the threat of losing mail service.

Strauss said he is aware of the manual's restriction but believes it only applies to groups of houses shifting to a centralized delivery point. It would not apply to individual homeowners, he said.

'Misinterpretation'

But spokesman Richard Watkins of the Mid-America Postal District in Kansas City said the district's policy does not include compelling people to put up new boxes by withholding mail. "Customers should be encouraged to help the postal service in this transition, but where they have established door-side delivery they should be able to keep that service," Watkins said.

Watkins attributed the Cape Girardeau policy to a "misinterpretation."

Strauss said the post office does not know how many people have been forced to put up new boxes in the past two years.

Some local property owners who were forced to put up new boxes believe the post office acted unfairly. "Basically they put a couple things in the mailbox saying I'm not going to receive any mail until I do this," said Greg Westermayer of St. Louis, who owns property at 822 William St.

"It seems like a pretty stupid place to put a mailbox out there on William Street. Why would you want to ask a post office driver to stop in the middle of William to deliver mail?"

Westermayer said he had to drive to Cape Girardeau from St. Louis specifically to put up the box. "I'd say the entire shooting match with gas and all cost me $150," he said.

Another homeowner, Drew Shipman of Washington Street, was equally perturbed at being forced to put up a box. "I really don't feel like I was dealt fairly with. They basically gave me a 'Do it, do it soon or else you're not getting your mail.'"

Shipman spent $99 last week to put up his mailbox and now wonders whether the post office was acting legally.

Others wonder whether shifting mailboxes to the curb is worth it.

A postal carrier who works a downtown route said she doesn't believe moving boxes to curbside makes her job any easier. "I don't think it's safe to put them out there and then to have to walk back and forth from the house to the street," she said, requesting that her name not be used.

Her route has no curbside boxes, she said, but she has delivered on city routes that do. "I was having to step back into the street to put the mail in. It's not any easier," she said.

The official postal manual warns postmasters against converting only a portion of a neighborhood to curbside service. "Postmasters should not establish a mixed delivery area where the carrier must zigzag from the door to the curb when previously the carrier took obvious shortcuts to effect delivery. Postmasters must weigh the advantages and disadvantages of converting less than 100 percent of the deliveries," it reads.

tgreaney@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245