[Durham INC] Postmaster Mike King

Wed Nov 9 12:12:36 EST 2011

Thank you Bill.  Find below copy/paste of the 3 Herald Sun articles on this exact subject.  I will gladly provide a copy of both letters sent to the new homeowner in my neighborhood where mail service had already been interrupted because the owner hadn’t yet erected a rural mailbox.  Please see the bold section.  You are even quoted in these articles Bill.  I hope Mr. King will meet with the community he is tasked with serving.

Myers

2005 Article-Herald Sun
ADAM PLAYFORD news at heraldsun.com<mailto:news at heraldsun.com>; 419-6630
The U.S. Postal Service's policy of telling people in Durham who move into a home that receives mail at its door to erect a curbside mailbox is drawing complaints from community groups. But the policy is now under review after The Herald-Sun pointed out apparent discrepancies between Postal Service rules and the new Durham policy.
A Postal Service letter delivered to new residents with front-door delivery reads in part: "If you are a new customer, we will hold your mail at the post office until you arrive and erect a curbside mailbox. We will allow you two weeks to put up your new mailbox. If your mail box is not erected within that time period, all mail will be returned to the sender." But Bill Anderson -- President of the InterNeighborhood Council, which has protested the forced changes -- learned that the Postal Operations Manual seems to prohibit a forced change. (The manual is available on the National Association of Letter Carriers' Web site, www.nalc.org.) Section 631.6, titled "Conversion of Mode of Delivery," partially reads: "Customer signatures must be obtained prior to any conversion. In single family housing areas (including manufactured housing and mobile homes) where the residences and lots are owned, each owner must agree to the conversion in writing. Owners who do not agree must be allowed to retain their current mode of delivery. "When a residence is sold, the mode of delivery cannot be arbitrarily changed prior to the new resident moving in. The existing mode of delivery must be retained." Durham's current interpretation of post office policy is that new residents in old homes may be switched to a new delivery mode, said Bill Brown, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in North Carolina. But after being asked about the regulation and provided with a copy of the Durham letter by The Herald-Sun, Brown said both the policy and the letter would be reviewed over the next few days by Durham's acting postmaster. The Herald-Sun could not reach the postmaster, Patrick Harkin, for comment about the review. "There's a difference between encouraging and forcing people to do it, and that's where we want to get that interpretation correct," Brown said. Anderson said he's pleased the post office is reviewing the policy and the letter. "Certainly of all folks who should communicate clearly, it should be the post office, and we think that the letter that they're sending out currently breeds confusion," Anderson said. Curbside benefits Brown said curbside delivery has several key advantages over door delivery, most of which stem from postal workers not needing to leave their vehicles. The postal service saves about $110 yearly for each house converted to curbside delivery, Brown said. Door delivery costs the post office about $250 for each house each year, Brown said. Delivery to a curbside mailbox is only $140. Because of these savings, moving to curbside delivery helps the post office avoid increasing rates, Brown said. But Anderson said curbside drop off also has disadvantages. Concerned about crime Most of the residents who have contacted him are worried mostly about crime, Anderson said -- specifically, mail and identity theft. Kristine Stiles, a professor at Duke University who lives on Roxboro Road and gets door delivery, had a mail slot installed in her door instead of having it delivered to a box outside because it was being stolen, she said. She would be worried about crime if she moved to a curbside mailbox, she said. "We're living in a culture in which these are growing concerns, and to move the boxes to the curb is to ignore those growing concerns," she said. Anderson said that mailboxes also detract from a neighborhood aesthetically and can cost about $100. People will also not be able to park in front of mailboxes, Brown said. Yet the areas where there still is door delivery tend to have houses closer together and cars are more likely to park in the street. "Everything is a unique situation with each community, and that's something that we need to look at from a block-to-block basis as to how they'd be affected by it, and if it would be advantageous to us to do," Brown said.
2006 Article-Herald Sun

ADAM PLAYFORD news at heraldsun.com; 419-6630
The U.S. Postal Service has backed away from sending a controversial letter telling Durham residents who move into a house getting door delivery to erect a curbside mailbox or face having their mail held for two weeks and returned to the sender. In a new letter, the post office instead will ask people to opt for a curbside box, said Patrick Harkin, Durham's interim postmaster.
Door delivery still will be stopped when new residents move in, but the residents will be allowed to resume it by calling the post office, Harkin said. He also said the distinction would be clear in the new letter and that he never personally intended to force people to change. Postal officials reconsidered the issue in July, after The Herald-Sun pointed out apparent discrepancies between the proposed letter and a policy in the Postal Operations Manual (available on the National Association of Letter Carriers' Web site, www.nalc.org). Section 631.6 of the manual, titled "Conservation of Mode of Delivery," says in part: "When a residence is sold, the mode of delivery cannot be arbitrarily changed prior to the new resident moving in. The existing mode of delivery must be retained." Curbside savings Curbside delivery saves the postal service about $110 per home annually, said Bill Brown, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service. Harkin said he personally didn't think the change was such a big deal. "We would hope that people will look at it that it's good to do this because it will help maintain our postage cost," Harkin said. "We're a mobile society these days. We get out, walk down the street, get out, drive half a block, maybe two, three blocks to the grocery store," Harkin said. "It's an easy thing to just walk out to the street and get our mail." But residents were concerned about mail theft, identity theft and aesthetics. They also worried that cars would park in front of mailboxes in neighborhoods where on-street parking is common, which tend to be older neighborhoods that may currently receive door delivery. Reserving judgment Bill Anderson, president of Durham's InterNeighborhood Council, which campaigned against the change, said he was not sure the revised policy outlined in the new letters would be acceptable to INC either. He said he preferred to reserve judgment until he saw one of the letters. Based on what was described to him, though, he said: "This is not the clarity that INC is hoping for. I'm anxiously waiting to see that letter." The council has been in touch with Durham's postmaster and is expecting a copy of the revised letter, Anderson said. Nancy Grandjean, who received a letter telling her to install a curbside post box when she moved into her Northgate Park house eight months ago, said the post office's letter would need to be much clearer this time. "If they're going to do it and people are really going to have a choice, it should be very specific and clear what your options are, and make it very clear that you do not have to put up the curbside box, that that's an option that you have," she said. As for her, she would like to move her mailbox back. Residents who moved their mailboxes to the curb under the old policy can contact the post office. Officials say they will examine each case individually. Grandjean said she planned to call and ask. "I think it's just not a nice thing to do to people who have just moved into a house and they have a lot of other things to do and worry about," she said. "They shouldn't have to worry about digging a big hole for a mailbox."

2005 Article-Herald Sun
JOHN MCCANN jmccann at heraldsun.com<mailto:jmccann at heraldsun.com>; 419-6601
A looming mailbox policy last summer that had Durham residents in a tizzy never materialized. But it would have had some merit, the postmaster says. At the time of the fuss, Durham Postmaster Chris Tink-ham was doing an eight-month fill-in stint for the postal service in Raleigh. Patrick Harkin was Durham's interim postmaster when letters were sent telling new Bull City residents to erect curbside mailboxes if their homes -- typically older ones -- were set up for front-door delivery. Residents howled. The postal service backed off. "The story is we are on standard operating procedure," said InterNeighborhood Council President Mike Woodard. In July, the INC drew a line in the sand objecting to a forced change. The philosophy of the U.S. Postal Service is that curbside delivery makes things easier on mail carriers, saving money that's supposed to skirt the need for raising the price of stamps -- which, by the way, will increase by 2 cents next year. That said, Tinkham won't force the issue and make folks pull the plug on front-door delivery, although some residents actually would welcome the switch, he said. There are homeowners who don't want to worry about the dog biting the mailman. Others just don't want anybody tramping through their yards, period. For those thinking the move was mandatory and hustled out and switched their mailboxes, reimbursements will be handled case-by-case, Tinkham said. Unfortunately, neither curbside mailboxes nor front-door bins do anything to thwart bad guys looking for personal information they can use to steal your identity. Sure, curbside boxes are convenient for crooks, but these bandits aren't lazy. They will just as easily take the extra steps and hop onto your porch and rummage around in the drop box by the front door. Tinkham recommends mailboxes with locks. They can be purchased individually. But the postmaster said buying one together as a cul de sac or street of neighbors has more aesthetic appeal, because it would be one centrally located container. As a matter of convenience, locked mailboxes forfeit the need to put mail on hold when you're headed out of town, Tink-ham said. Keep in mind, the postmaster added, mailbox thieves are lurking between the hours when your mail is delivered and the time you finally arrive home from work or running errands. And older people should be especially vigilant. These bandits are drawn to their letter receptacles like electronic spam to e-mail inboxes. "Usually, the elderly have a nest egg," Tinkham explained. Due in part to consumer wariness about online identity theft, the volume of first-class mail remains high even around here in the academically progressive and technologically savvy Triangle area, Tinkham said. When you send those letters, though, particularly if they contain precious personal information, the postmaster said there's no topping the security of the big, blue mailboxes scattered throughout the Bull City. They are old-fashioned, but obviously not outdated. The inconvenience of locating one is worth the months and years it could take to recover your financial life from an identity thief. "They're locked," Tinkham said of the government mailboxes, "and we're the only ones with the keys." "In Your Neighborhood" appears every Monday. If you know of someone or something interesting in your neighborhood, call 419-6630 or e-mail news @heraldsun.com.

From: TheOcean1 at aol.com [mailto:TheOcean1 at aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 12:06 PM
To: Myers Sugg; inc-list at rtpnet.org
Cc: mike.e.king at usps.gov
Subject: Re: [Durham INC] Postmaster Mike King

Hard to call it a relationship, Myers, but I just got off the phone with Mr King (who is CCed) and will gladly forward his reply to this message back to the INC listserv.

Just FYI, when the 2005-2006 issue came up, I was passing the INC gavel to Mike Woodard, so we have always had two past presidents visiting with each new post master... and there have been a few.
It's my understanding from our long ago meeting with Postmaster Chris Tinkham, that Postmaster Patrick Harkin was demoted over the issue, and Mr Tinkham was quite willing to work with the neighborhoods. He even committing to pay residents who had been forced to put up rural mailboxes in "porch delivered" neighborhoods.
That's why Mike Woodard and I have met with all the incoming Postmasters, including Dominic Camasso when he replaced Tinkham, and we did so again when Mike King took the helm.

Unlike all the previous Postmasters, Mr King just told me that the USPS has the right to independently decide to change the mode of delivery. So I asked if he was available to meet with the InterNeighborhood Council at our Nov meeting, and he instantly said he wasn't available. So I asked if he would be available to meet the 4th Tues in Jan 2012, and he said he wouldn't commit to an appointment that far out, and we'd need to check with him after the first.

He explained his unusual response by telling me that his family was more important than any neighborhood, and he has a handicapped daughter who's needs come first. (media is welcome to quote me as to that being virtually verbatim)

While I applaud Mr King's dedication to his family, I think a greater dedication to the neighborhoods is in order, as that is the job that is putting food on the table for his family. Meanwhile, Myers, I would encourage you to bring those letters and those news articles to every INC meeting until we can secure a guest appearance with Mr King.

Hopefully we'll eventually arrive at a win/win solution as we did with Mr Tinkham so long ago. One last suggestion for Mr King, check your own postal manual (which is generally not available to the public, but we were able to secure a copy of the appropriate pages). Six years ago, and perhaps it has changed in the meantime, it stated that placing a rural mailbox in a porch delivered neighborhood causes the carrier to walk a zig zag route that is not efficient.

The member neighborhoods of InterNeighborhood Council look forward to your reply, and to meeting you in person, at your earliest convenience.

Bill Anderson
Past President INC
PS: If those letters are exactly the same as the letters six years ago, they will be cleverly worded to "trick", not "require", the postal customer to change their mode of delivery. And that change in mode of delivery becomes permanent after 30 or 90 days, I can't recall which. There are still a few mailboxes in Northgate Park which look utterly ridiculous.
I can't speak to whether the postal manuals have changed in the past half dozen years, but I rather doubt Durham's neighborhoods have reversed how they feel about this unconscionable practice.

In a message dated 11/9/2011 10:22:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, andrew.sugg at duke.edu<mailto:andrew.sugg at duke.edu> writes:
Does anyone here (Bill, how about you?) have a relationship with the acting and now permanent postmaster for Durham, Mike King?  The ever deceptive practice of “we are going to withhold your mail until you erect a rural mailbox and return to send” even though postal regulations don’t allow this, is back in full swing in my neighborhood.  I have a copy of two letters from the post office where this threat is made.  This is for a new neighbor of mine on Echo Road, in Long Meadow.  I still have copies of the 2005 & 2006 Herald Sun articles outlining this practice, and how USPS was going to back off, as they didn’t have this authority.  If anyone has a current relationship with the postmaster, please let me know.  I really want to help this homeowner.

Thanks,

Myers Sugg

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