Our Six Month Saga
With the Post Office
The Post Office is losing $8.5 billion per year.
It has been seeking changes at Covered Bridge that
would reduce its costs while imposing hardships
on Covered Bridge residents. We have successfully
thwarted those efforts.
First, the Post Office demanded that we put our
mailboxes in parking lots. This would have made it
difficult for the elderly and handicapped to get their
mail and would have required all of us to face bad
weather and icy conditions. When, on behalf of the
Board of Trustees, I sent a letter to Congressman
Pallone asking for his help, he urged the Post Office
to change its position. Later, we learned that the Post
Office had no authority to require this in existing
residential developments.
The Post Office demanded that all of our mailboxes
at buildings (except ranches) be replaced by
larger ones. They told us that each buildings’ mailboxes
had to be put together on one side of the hall
and had to be lowered. If we agreed, our cost would
have been very high, mailbox locations would have
been less convenient, and old mailboxes would have
remained exposed.
Because these issues came up in several daytime
meetings here, I represented Covered Bridge
in standing up for our rights, working closely with
our foreman, Robert Knauf. He did an excellent job
of researching whether there was a legitimate basis
for the Post Office’s demands and finding the lowest
cost solution to what we actually had to do. The entire
Board of Trustees supported our position and later had
an evening meeting with Post Office representatives.
We learned that we do not have to put each buildings’
mailboxes in one place and we do not have to
lower the mailboxes. Only mailboxes in our oldest
buildings were undersized and had to be replaced.
Robert Knauf found the lowest cost approved supplier
and has our maintenance staff mounting larger
mailboxes on top of existing ones. There is no need
to tear up brick, leave the old mailboxes exposed or
narrow the hallway further than allowed.
Next, the Post Office demanded that our residents
put all outgoing mail in four mailboxes along Amberly
Drive. It did not want mail pick-up in each building.
After another letter to Congressman Pallone on behalf
of the Board, I discussed the problem with him when
he spoke to our residents one morning at Covered
Bridge. After he asked a few questions, he instructed
his Chief of Staff to seek formal approval for the current
arrangement. Despite the Post Office edict, their
employees working in Covered Bridge continue to
pick up outgoing mail at each building.
Sid Leveson