Petersburg Pilot

Harbor users must

pay for mailbox use

Keith Chaplin

August 19, 2010.

After living in the Petersburg harbor aboard his boat for close to 30 years, James Spignesi got notice recently that he must pay for his post office box.

Spignesi, who pays an extra $50 fee on top of his moorage and electricity bill to live in the harbor said he isn’t going to pay the $70 annual fee for a mailbox.

“It doesn’t matter that I live on a boat,” Spignesi said. “It seems pretty arbitrary.”

He said he has to go to the post office like any other resident to pick up his mail in a town without delivery.

One reason he was given for the fee is that his home is movable. Spignesi pointed out that residents in LeConte trailer park have movable homes as well, but do not have to pay a fee.

Postmaster Teresa Lara said the regulations were misinterpreted in the past, and harbor users must pay a fee for a box.

She said the harbor office is the only permanent address, so the harbor office is the only no fee box.

According to United States Postal Service regulations:

“Only one free (Group E) Post Office box may be obtained for each potential carrier delivery point of service. Group E customers are assigned the smallest available box that will reasonably accommodate their daily mail volume. Eligibility for Group E boxes does not extend to individual tenants, contractors, employees, or other individuals receiving or eligible to receive single-point delivery such as delivery to a hotel, college, military installation, or transient trailer park. A customer must pay the applicable fee for each additional box requested beyond the initial box obtained at the Group E fee.”

“The harbor is the main delivery box, everybody else is under them,” Lara said. “Harbor people have to pay.”

Joshua C. McCoy, manager of the address management system for the USPS agrees.

“The Harbor Master gets the free box and provides delivery to the tenants. Tenants not happy with that arrangement must pay for post office boxes because the box service is premium to the service they receive for free,” he said in an email.

Lara said that trailers that are skirted and intend to be permanently located do not have to pay a box fee. She said that the rules were misinterpreted in the past and said those with boxes living in the harbor should have paid.

“They should have been charged all this time,” Lara said.

Ed Bottani has lived in a boat in the harbor for over 10 years and said he feels like he is being treated like a second-class citizen.

He said the location of the post office out of town means he has to pay for a cab ride to check the mail. He said he votes in Petersburg and doesn’t know what else he can do to get a post office box.

Bottani said he is so disappointed by the way he has been treated, he is going to contact the American Civil Liberties Union to look into the issue.