Follow up to damaged mailbox - impact to community

We wanted to provide the community and especially those members using the damaged mailbox #2 with an update, as well as discuss more information about the incident. First, we have been notified by the USPS that no mail will be delivered to that box, so those impacted will need to go to the Dingmans Ferry USPS office to get your mail. Reasons stated are simply safety (since the box is no longer secured) and security (since the box is damaged).

We are looking at several short and long term actions and discussing these with the postal service. There are enough empty boxes among the rest there to support moving the 24 affected people so they get their mail. The USPS has a team that would swap out the locks so that your current keys would work, and the affected individuals would be notified of their new location. We should have more on this option Monday or Tuesday, but that activity would have to be scheduled. This may be the quickest route for delivery resumption. 

All other options involve working with the USPS to see if we can repair the existing box, fix or replace the semi-destroyed base, re-anchor it and remount the box to the base.  If we cannot repair the box, there is an expense to the community to replace it. We own the boxes, not the postal service. Some people believed the USPS owned them. The board is working directly with the postmistress on all these actions.

Back to the incident... At this point no one has stepped up to take responsibility. We have information that a red SUV/Pick Up Truck may have been involved and someone came back to retrieve the broken silver trim at the scene. We know accidents happen, but without anyone taking ownership, the burden and expense falls to the community. We have no desire to involve the authorities and are just looking to work things out (in private) with whomever had this accident.

To prevent this from happening again (this is the second time this year and has also happened in the past), the Board is considering installing a row of  pillars to stop vehicles from running into the boxes. We do not like the thought of doing that, but the inconvenience to residents and expense to the HoA caused by one individual are making this a serious consideration. Again, we apologize for the inconvenience caused to those affected residents and we are trying to remedy this as quickly as possible given the circumstances and postal service scheduling. Thank you for your patience and consideration. If you have any thoughts, ideas, etc. the board's email is [email protected].