April 23, 2004 – A shiny, bright blue mail box sat in front of the Motor Vehicle Bureau offices in Sub Base on Friday morning, compliments of the U.S. Postal Service.
Recycled from a retired mailbox, the container is the official MVB lock box for St. Thomas, ready to receive motorists' vehicle registration paperwork.
The bureau's new services — accepting registrations by mail or by deposit in the lock boxes — was to be launched on Monday. "We started ahead of time," Sgt. Thomas Hannah, Police spokesman, said on Friday, referring to the box. "It was installed, so we said 'Let's go ahead.'"
Hannah credited V.I. Postmaster Louis Jackson with making the box — and others — available to the bureau. "One of our officers, Riley Waugh, suggested asking the post office for some mail boxes," Hannah said, "and Jackson was willing to help out."
He added that the acting postmaster on St. Croix, Brenda Lynch, was equally generous.
Two boxes have been installed on St. Croix in front of the Patrick Sweeney Police Headquarters, and there's one on St. John outside the bureau offices. Hannah said he thinks another one eventually will be installed on St. Thomas.
"Everyone has been very cooperative working with us," he said. "Other agencies — the Internal Revenue Bureau and the Department of Finance — have offered assistance and ways to improve the service. It's a win-win situation."
Police Commissioner Elton Lewis announced the new alternatives to spending hours standing in long lines to renew vehicle registrations last week. Initially he said the changes would be in effect just for St. Thomas, but a later he revised that to include St. Croix and St. John as well. See "Mail-in, drop-off registration options for all".)
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