Birch Bay resident calls for USPS collection box to be installed locally

A Birch Bay resident is calling for a U.S. Postal Service (USPS) collection box to be installed locally in order to prevent mail theft and make life easier for Birch Bay’s sizeable population.

Kelvin Barton has been busy contacting USPS and congresswoman Suzan DelBene’s office in order to lobby for the installation of one or two blue collection boxes, which he believes would give Birch Bay’s postal customers a “safe place to mail something.”

“It would help the mail be more secure,” he said.

Whenever he mails credit card payments and other important items, Barton says he tries to place them in his individual mailbox right before the mail carrier comes that day. That’s because anyone can pass by, open his mailbox and take mail from inside.

Barton said his only other option is to make the long drive to the Blaine post office. “If I want to go to the post office to make sure something gets in the mail, it’s a 14-mile roundtrip from the middle of Birch Bay to the post office,” he said.

When he started working on this issue, Barton spoke with a USPS representative who performed a check and found that there wasn’t a single blue collection box in the 98230 zip code. “They were like, ‘This is shocking to us.’ That kind of got me going on this quest,” Barton said.

Barton eventually reached out to DelBene’s congressional office, where he was assisted by a special assistant to DelBene. “[USPS] informed us that installing blue collection boxes on rural routes is not a practical possibility,” the assistant wrote to Barton on September 12 last year. “They say the boxes are targets for vandalism and, in addition, the volume of outgoing mail in the Birch Bay area does not support the installation and servicing of a box.”

DelBene’s congressional assistant continued: “Finally, they said, ‘There are several CBUs on streets in Birch Bay as well as the hotel where customers can deposit their outgoing mail.’ By CBU, they are referring to cluster box units, which are those sets of mailboxes that you see at apartment buildings and condo complexes. Each of those always has a slot for outgoing mail.”

Barton was not satisfied with this answer. “[DelBene’s] office contacted the post office, who said it’s a rural route and they can’t do it on a rural route,” he said. “Then they said there are a whole bunch of apartment complexes and condos, just go in and use their mail systems. There’s a contradiction there: Why do we have apartments and condos if we’re rural?”

In addition to citing Birch Bay’s sizeable population, which can swell to over 20,000 people in the summertime, Barton said it’s illegal to go into neighboring apartment and condo complexes in order to use their outgoing mail slots. He also said that criminals could use this as a cover for trespassing on private property. “They could go in and wander around and just say, ‘I was looking for a mailbox,’” he said.

Barton followed up with DelBene’s office several times but has made little progress. “It frustrated me because they didn’t give a solution, they kept quoting the post office’s answer,” he said. “I just think that this is a really inexpensive solution.”

Barton suggested several locations for a blue box, including The C Shop, Bay Center Market, Bay Café, the Birch Bay Visitor Center or the fire station next to the ballot drop box. “With social distancing, we’re trying to stay away from others, we’re all trying to stay home,” he said. “Now more than ever, we really need to have a blue mailbox here. Two would be nice but one would be awesome.”