Postal procedure raises questions about privacy

Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2002 | 11:10 a.m.

A three-month-old U.S. Postal Service policy in effect in Henderson -- one that could spread statewide -- has the service turning over responsibility for the maintenance and security of residential mailboxes to developers and homeowner associations.

The change, which reverses decades of policy, could mean higher costs for residents and become a potential threat to privacy, policy critics say.

"It affects every homeowner who gets mail," said Irene Porter, president of the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association. "It's not just talking about builders and developers here. We're talking about the general public."

Under the policy, the builder is responsible for putting up group mailboxes in residential subdivisions. Either the builder or a designated homeowners association is then charged with permanently taking care of the maintenance and administration of the mailboxes.

The postal service has always taken care of building, maintenance and security.

That has left builders fearing they will be forced to create expensive and complicated homeowners associations to take care of the mailboxes and concerned about the security and privacy of the residents' mail.

Allen Lichtenstein, American Civil Liberties Association attorney, said the policy raises some serious concerns, particularly if homeowners associations are in charge of the mailboxes.

"What are the association's responsibilities and limitations?" he asked. "Could a homeowners association make a rule about the type of mail to be delivered there?

"These questions have to be addressed before this kind of thing can go forward," Lichtenstein said. "If the answers aren't there, the mail is out there in Never-Never Land."

He said law and administration policy need to ensure that the homeowner's rights to privacy and to regular delivery of the mail are protected.

But the Henderson post office's announcement of the policy to area home builders Aug. 1 -- an announcement that said the policy was "effective immediately" -- did not address those issues, instead telling builders that they would buy and install the mailboxes and be responsible for all costs "except the postal carrier access lock."

"These responsibilities can be reassigned to homeowners associations with written notification to the U.S. Postal Service," Henderson Postmaster Scott Norris said in the letter to developers.

The change will add at least $200 to the average cost of a new home, Porter said. But the association's bigger concerns are how the responsibility would be shifted -- and how existing insecurities about mail service will grow.

"Every citizen is going to have to think about how they are going to get mail delivery," she said.

The Sierra Nevada division of the 227-year-old postal service says the change is necessary because of the agency's bottom line. Vic Fenimore, a service spokesman, said his division spent $2.5 million last year on the installation and maintenance of residential mailboxes, 80 percent of that near Las Vegas.

"We have to fend for ourselves out there," Fenimore said. "We have to be fiscally responsible. We don't want to raise postage rates. We're trying to do everything we can to help the consumer in regard to postage."

Last year's anthrax bioterror attacks, private-sector competition and rising costs have battered the service, which last fiscal year posted a $1.5 billion deficit.

After calls from the Las Vegas Sun and complaints from builders, the Postal Service appeared to backpedal on the policy. The agency met with builders last week and more meetings are scheduled.

Norris said resistance by the home-building industry could mean modifications to the policy.

Fenimore and Norris said the change would bring local policy in line with other parts of the country, but could not identify any areas where the box maintenance is a builder's or homeowner's responsibility.

Some post offices in other parts of the country require builders to install the boxes when constructing homes, a prospect that builders do not welcome but say they will accept.

But Kent Lay, senior division president for Beazer Homes, the nation's sixth-largest builder with operations throughout the country, said he knows of no area that turns over the maintenance and administration duties to builders.

Builders can absorb or pass on the additional cost for installing the mailboxes, Lay said, "but it's who's going to administer the boxes, who's going to be responsible, that's the issue that concerns me."

Lay said homeowners associations now would appear to be needed for the long-term administration of the communal mailboxes, a prospect that raises security concerns and could eventually add much more to the cost of homeowning.

Homeowners associations are common for residential subdivisions in the Las Vegas Valley but are not required.

Home builders said the policy would force them to set up homeowners associations to maintain and administer the mailboxes. The builders say that could add thousands of dollars annually to the cost of having a home.

Norris did not rule out extending the policy to older subdivisions with mailboxes now maintained by the Postal Service, although he said there are no definite plans that would affect existing group boxes.

Norris defended the policy for new boxes as something that is already widespread at apartment complexes, where apartment managers maintain the mailboxes.

Porter, however, said the important difference between the two is that apartment mailboxes are usually located at a central, well-lit location, and residents pay for the mailbox maintenance in their rent.

Residential communal mailboxes, however, are usually located at the outskirts of subdivisions, and until now the Postal Service has been responsible for their administration.

And apartment dwellers and homeowners alike are experiencing rising mail problems, including the theft of documents leading to identity theft. Porter said she fears that the problem would accelerate under the new policy.

But Norris downplayed the impact of the change.

"We're just suggesting to the developers that the mode of delivery is one that we are not going to provide for," he said.

Group mailboxes are build because Postal Service regulations discourage individual mailboxes in new subdivisions and will not provide home delivery at all until at least 50 percent of homes are built in the subdivision, Norris said.

"We don't go to individual houses, up the porch and individually deliver the mail anymore," Norris said, but acknowledged that the policy is true only for new homes. Older homes still receive individual attention.

But while eliminating individual home delivery may be in the future, the responsibility shift for taking care of the group boxes is in place now.

Norris said the Postal Service's concern in Henderson is to make the builder and the homeowner responsible for the end-point collection. He said customers will have to find some way to administer the group boxes.

"We're getting out of the business of providing the large mailboxes," he said. "We're not going to provide those in the future."

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