Posted on 08/03/2008 3:12:30 AM PDT by Daffynition
SUTTON ISLAND, Maine - This offshore island, one of five islands that make up the town of Cranberry Isles, has no year-round residents.
It doesnt even have any roads to speak of, which is one reason it has had a peculiar seasonal mail delivery system to serve the occupants of 25 or so seasonal homes.
Residents say that since at least the 1950s, and perhaps longer, mail has been delivered to the island by a private passenger ferry service, leaving packages, postcards, letters, bills, and whatever else had enough postage in a specially marked trash can on the float at the end of the islands lone municipal dock.
Any island residents expecting anything in the mail would simply stroll down some paths to the dock, remove the lid on the aluminum trash can, and fish out anything that had his or her name on it.
But no more.
Though permitted by a succession of postmasters in Northeast Harbor, where the ferry service comes and goes from the island, the practice has been put to a sudden stop by the U.S. Postal Service. Now, to get their mail, island residents will have to make the two-mile ocean journey to Northeast Harbor to pick it up themselves.
"That can mean a three-hour trip out of your day just to get the mail," said resident Shea Howell, who lives in Detroit, Mich., during the winter. "Its not an insignificant part of peoples lives to get mail."
According to U.S. Postal Service spokesman Tom Rizzo, the practice came to the attention of senior postal officials a few months ago when someone on the island called the new postmaster in Northeast Harbor and complained that the outgoing mail she had placed in the trash can was not being picked up quickly enough.
The postmaster, Heidi MacGregor, called her superiors to tell them of the situation, Rizzo said Friday, and all agreed that the practice of delivering mail to the trash can would have to cease immediately.
"It really never should have been allowed," Rizzo said. "Theres no security to that mail whatsoever."
MacGregor directed questions about the decision to Rizzo.
According to Howell, having mail service to Sutton provided some residents with a sense of security, even though it was placed in an unguarded trash can. It allowed older residents who stay several months on the island at a time to pay bills, to stay in touch with family and friends, and even to receive needed medications, she said.
"Were not going to give this up easily," Howell said. "Were going to find some scheme that will work for us."
John Nevius, an attorney from New York City who has summered on Sutton Island for 40 years, said Friday that there should be some sort of compromise.
"This is an unfortunate development," he said. "On the one hand, property owners pay taxes and are entitled to postal service. On the other hand, I understand some of the Postal Services concerns. It seems to me there should be a cooperative way to work this out."
Nevius suggested that island residents should have the right to make arrangements for the ferry service to pick up their mail, similar to having a friend or relative pick it up.
"Whatever arrangement a community organization makes with a private ferry service is nobody elses business," Nevius said.
But according to Rizzo, the U.S. Postal Service has a mandate to deliver mail to secure mailboxes, in part to prevent crimes such as theft, tampering and even identity theft.
Beal & Bunker, the ferry service that delivered mail to Sutton and still does to other nearby islands, may be approved for transporting mail to Islesford and Great Cranberry Island, he said, but that is because those islands have post offices and postmasters who can receive and sort the deliveries. Because Sutton Island has no such system, it would not matter that Beal & Bunker is an approved USPS contractor, he said.
For the Postal Service, it is the trash can system that is unacceptable.
"Personally, I was horrified [to learn about it] because it is so far outside of normal procedure," Rizzo said. "The [Northeast Harbor] postmaster really didnt have a choice."
For some island residents, the issue is more about tradition and the islands uncommon rustic character than it is about a needed service. Some recalled Friday how, when people relied more on "snail mail" than they do now, islanders would meet at the morning boat that delivered the mail and sometimes carry other peoples mail to their homes, sparing them a walk to the dock.
Robert Fernald, president of the Association for the Preservation of Sutton Island, said the group held its annual meeting Thursday and spent a few minutes discussing the issue of mail delivery.
Fernald, who lives in Cleveland, said Friday that most island residents are not up in arms about not getting mail delivery at the island anymore. Many already go to Northeast Harbor to get their mail, he said, so building a post office on the island assuming the Postal Service would approve and fund such a plan is something that most island residents likely wouldnt want.
"People like the trash can," he said. "Theyve always liked it. Were going to explore if theres another solution that satisfies the Postal Service."
The unusual mail delivery system is not the only aspect of traditional life on the island that has been debated in recent years.
When the island association held its annual meeting in 2007, a question of whether to permit golf carts on the island was hotly debated, according to some residents. Eventually, an arrangement was reached that allowed one resident to use a golf cart on the islands narrow paths, they said.
But, according to several islanders interviewed Friday, maintaining Suttons rustic and remote character is appealing only to a certain point. In fact, some residents now get high-speed wireless Internet service beamed to their homes from a transmitter that also serves nearby, more developed communities on other islands.
Andy Potter, who owns a cottage on the islands north shore, said the trash can still functions as a meeting spot, albeit a lesser one now that there are no more Postal Service deliveries. He said UPS and FedEx deliver packages to the can, which helps to maintain its quirky purpose.
On Friday, Potter said he sent e-mails to several fellow island residents this week to get responses about what the trash-can delivery system has meant to those who summer on Sutton.
"I always enjoyed telling the uninitiated about the mail service to give them a better sense of the Sutton Island experience," Potter read from one e-mail as he was interviewed by phone from his home in Evergreen, Colo.
Potter, too, held out hope that the Postal Service might approve a different, but similar, arrangement. Perhaps a locked box that only islanders could open would be an appropriate receptacle, he said.
Potter would like to keep using the same old trash can to get his mail, but he acknowledged that not every tradition lasts forever.
"Were sad to see it go," Potter said. "Its sort of like lighthouses. In reality, theyre not that useful anymore."
Sutton Island summer residents Matsae Walsh (left) and Shea Howell tie up a boat at the island dock Tuesday, July 29, 2008. Some of the people who stay on the island are upset because the U.S. Postal Service no longer delivers mail to the island because the receiving facility was the garbage can on the dock (right). (Bangor Daily News/Gabor Degre)
Nonsense. The USPS delivers mail to millions of nonsecure mailboxes every day.
Maine - the way life USED to be.......
It’s getting to be the pits up here - in more ways than one.
It’s ridiculous. My mailbox isn’t secure and neither are those of any of my neighbors. Anyone can open it - which is why the Post Office periodically warns people not to leave mail sitting in it or leave their outgoing bills with checks in it because they can easily be stolen.
There must be tens of millions of people who get mail delivered in unsecure boxes
The Cranberries are such a wonderful place to kayak. The osprey nest on the rocks at the northwest end of Sutton Island is wonderful!
#3- City folk move from Salt Lake City to my little town because it is the country. Then they complain because the roosters crow at 5 am.
.....Bob
the usps has a long tradition of delivering my mail to other people. I met half my neighbors as we redistribute mail to the recipients.
Are you in Maine, then? We were just there last weekend — Orr’s Island — from Los Angeles.
It is beautiful up there. Now my husband wants to be a lobsterman. Please advise. :)
Haha, you said that when they complained about your barn? hahah. Good for you. We had city folks moving into eastern California one year. They started complaining that they had to take their trash to the dump!! And moved home shortly thereafter. Bye ...
the practice came to the attention of senior postal officials a few months ago when someone on the island called the new postmaster in Northeast Harbor and complained that the outgoing mail she had placed in the trash can was not being picked up quickly enough.
These people did it to themselves. If they had not complained everything would still be OK.
The modern postal service is a joke - higher rates and less service. A little competition is what is needed. It's time to break up the monopoly.
Here on Virginia’s Eastern Shore,we haul our trash to “green boxes”(because they’re painted green,no eco-weenie reason) that are placed around the county.These boxes are better than a department store..2 wks ago I picked up an HP laser printer...works like a champ! I swear the local antique shop owners drive by the boxes constantly, looking for a discarded treasure.
Yes, but..... my unsecured mail box, the one with the red flag on the side, is a USPS Approved mail box.
A weather proof galvanized steel receptacle generally used as a trash can is not.
Maybe so .... but the “new” postmaster was a flatlander ... mark my wordz. ;-)
ahe-ya,betcha
I know you didn't ask me, but I couldn't resist. Tell your hubby that anytime he gets the hankering for Maine lobsta, just lobstergram yourselves as many as you want of those succulent critters, and I do mean *ANY* amount. In the end, you'll come out way ahead of the game ... don't ask me how I know ... ahem...cough...cough. 8-P
Visit. Don’t move here.
Highest (or close to it) taxes in nation, energy costs, medical costs, health insurances, after 20 or so years of Democrat/RINO control.
Used to be a nice place to live with conservative family values, etc, now it might as well be Massachusetts or San Francisco......
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