Home Mail Delivery Problems Discussed At Hillyard Meeting Plan For Collection Box Units Poses Separate Concerns For Residents, Postal Carriers

A neighborhood effort to keep home mail delivery has worked so far for residents living on North Market. But neighbors are wondering how much longer the post office will appease them.

The Hillyard Post Office notified some residents earlier this year that they would have to pick up their mail at collection box units. The notice applied to people living on Market Street north of Francis.

After some protests, a customer service relations employee with the post office assured the neighbors that any change to their mail service won’t come without their approval.

“If I wanted to run it through them, I could have gotten these things (mail units) in the ground in a month,” said Bob Hamerstad, a spokesman for the post office. “But that’s not going to happen.”

The neighbors expressed their concerns again at a meeting last week.

The post office wants to install the units because heavy traffic on Market is dangerous for postal carriers. But some residents, many of whom are elderly, say it’s not safe for them to be exposed to the heavy traffic either.

The post office planned to install the mail units between the end of March and mid-April. But objections from neighbors halted the post office’s plan.

“Now, the proposed date of installation is up in the air,” neighbor LeAnna Watkins told the audience of about 25 people. “And the location of proposed drop boxes is up in the air.”

Letter carriers used to drive with two wheels on the sidewalk to deliver mail. But that is against state law, and Hamerstad said the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department recently warned postal carriers about driving on the sidewalk.

“We’ve been trying to find something that would work for neighbors and meet the rules of the county,” Hamerstad said.

Nothing has worked so far. Hamerstad said he will keep meeting with neighbors until the situation is resolved.

Most new housing developments in the Spokane area have their mail delivered to collection boxes. The post office says they are safer, faster and less prone to vandalism and theft.

But North Market residents are quick to point out that their neighborhood is not a new housing development.

Hamerstad said the post office’s original idea was to put collection box units on every block from 6301 to 7229 North Market.

“But those blocks are really long up there. For the people in the middle of those blocks, it was a long haul,” he said.

The area is out of the city limits and is a rural postal route. So the post office proposed placing the units on the property of neighbors who live off Market street.

“But no one wanted the units on their own property,” according to Hamerstad.

He said mail carriers will continue to walk Market Street until a solution is met. He said postal carriers are not safe walking the route.

“The union’s not happy with that. The traffic’s not sticking to the posted speed limit,” he said. “But this has been OK’d by the postmaster until a solution has been resolved.”