Oct. 20, 2004 – St. John resident Tom Lee is fed up with the mail service. The Canvas Factory owner on Wednesday cited a list of complaints that included a recent stoppage of delivery to his Mongoose Junction store and slow delivery of first class and priority mail to his post office mailbox.
"It takes two to three weeks. I don't know what black hole it falls into," he said of priority and first class mail. He and others have had to ask post office staff to do special searches for items long over due.
This reporter recently had experiences with personal mail between the islands, which echoed these concerns. A thick envelope mailed in St. Thomas on Sept. 27 was marked that it arrived in St. John that same day, but no one notified the recipient that the envelope was waiting in the package trailer. After checking regularly until Oct. 12, the day it was needed, she asked a postal employee to look for the missing envelopes. He found the St. Thomas envelope, as well as a catalogue order that had been sitting in the package trailer since Sept. 29.
A similar envelope mailed from St. Croix in late September and an envelope mailed Oct. 8 at the St. John post office have yet to arrive.
The missing envelopes are not at the post office, said Cesar Fuentes, who serves as the manager of program support in the Puerto Rico office.
He said he asked the supervisor at the St. John post office to check the trailer thoroughly for the missing items. She had no luck finding them.
"She looked through everything," Fuentes said.
Fuentes said the post office is now going to issue second notices to customers who have packages in the trailer in case the employees failed to issue the initial notices. This appeared to be the case with the tardy St. Thomas envelope.
St. John resident Theodora Moorehead also reports experiencing slow service. She said the problem arises because the post office is understaffed.
To help solve that problem, Fuentes said the St. John post office would get help, when needed, from a St. Thomas employee.
Residents have also complained that mail delivery to Coral Bay has been intermittent. Fuentes said problems with mail carrier delivery around Cruz Bay and to Coral Bay have been worked out as of Monday.
However, don't tell Lee that. He said he had to carry a 56-pound roll of canvas from the post office several blocks to his store on Monday because there was no delivery.
Coral Bay resident Norm Gledhill said in the past few months his cable TV bill has come so late he can't make the payment deadline.
"I write the check the same day or the next day, but it doesn't get there in time," he said. He also said it usually takes a week for mail deposited in St. John and destined for St. John to arrive.
Gledhill said he never seems to get the right assortment of stickers on the very few boxes he mails. He said it seems that when he puts on the same ones he needed the previous time, the clerk tells him he's wrong.
He said it would be helpful if the clerk handed him the correct stickers needed for customs, insurance and whatever rather than depending on customers to figure out the complex system. He could then step to the side to fill them out while the clerk helps the next customer in line. There is a sign hanging from the post office ceiling detailing what stickers are needed, but it's out of the line of sight for most customers.
Lee said since the post office is a federal agency, he expects the services promised.
"If your mail is really important, it can be real stressful," he said.
Fuentes promised that St. John residents' concerns would be addressed. "We are here to serve you," he said.
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