Residents of Amagansett, one of the only communities on the South Fork without residential mail delivery, may soon see notices in their post office boxes asking whether they would prefer to get mail at home or are happy with the status quo.
At a virtual meeting of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee on Monday night, Jim MacMillan, who has been dueling with postal service officials for years over home mail delivery, sounded a bit weary as he reported that "U.S.P.S. isn't forthcoming until we submit a petition," signed by a majority of Amagansett Post Office boxholders, to the local postmaster.
There are 2,004 active boxes there as of this week, meaning, he said, that 1,003 signatures would be needed. Even if that many are collected, he cautioned, it would not constitute a request to institute change — only a request to consider doing so. Only if officials agreed to that first step would they then provide details of what home delivery would involve — to start with, for example, a map of delivery routes.
According to an email sent recently to all advisory committee members, "the distinction is important, as residents may alter their view of wanting change depending on what rural delivery would actually mean" to them.
Deborah Wick, who with Dawn Brophy has been working with Mr. MacMillan, read out a list of reasons why home delivery is being pursued. Topping the list was the problematic fact that mail addressed to a street address, without the resident's box number, is returned to its sender. "We don't exist, according to Verizon and AT&T," said Mr. MacMillan, "but once we give a street address, we will."
"They don't have us in their database," Ms. Wick said. "And banks don't like to ship to P.O. boxes," particularly when mailing credit cards and new books of checks. Cellphone companies, too, refuse to ship phones to P.O. boxes, and packages sent by companies that require a physical address cannot be delivered either if sent through the postal service.
The post office committee members also noted in their email that parking there is very limited, traffic entering and exiting poses safety issues, patrons often wait in long lines in tight areas to receive their packages, and seniors and others who no longer drive have trouble getting their mail at all.
Last July, following his preliminary inquiries, Mr. MacMillan heard from a postal official that "customers who wish to retain their no-fee post office box service, should street delivery be approved, will be required to pay prevailing post office box rents." The current annual rate, Ms. Wick reported Monday night, is $106.
Residents should know that, she said, and should be asked "whether you are willing to petition for home mail delivery and pay for your P.O. box to allow the people who want home mail delivery to get it."
"We want home delivery," she said, "but I would like 2,000 people to tell us what they want."
"What we really want is everybody's name on a petition," said David Hillman. " 'If you're in favor, sign here and return.' Then go from there. Get as many as possible, then go to the next step."
Ms. Wick agreed, but reminded the gathering that "the post office could come back and say, 'We're not doing it.' " Nevertheless, she said, "We have to give it our best shot now, with the post office getting more money [from the Biden administration] and more new people here," renting, buying, living full time in their weekend houses. "Now's the time to do it."
