The U.S. Postal Service’s response to the issue of Sutton Islanders getting their mail from the trash can at the end of their dock was typical of a large bureaucratic organization with a “one-size-fits-all” mentality.

The issues are these: the Postal Service won’t accept mail addressed to Sutton Island which didn’t exist for them since it has no ZIP code; and it is inefficient for the residents of Sutton Island to individually go into Northeast Harbor to collect their mail, so one person, who was already going to Northeast Harbor, collected the mail for everybody.

The Postal Service says its automatic sorting equipment cannot cope with the name Sutton Island but its equipment reads the ZIP number, not names. The Sutton Island mail carrying ZIP 04662 arrived at Northeast Harbor with no problem. In Northeast Harbor, it is a person, not a machine, who looks at the mail putting it in the appropriate P.O. boxes (or some place labeled Sutton). From any P.O. box the addressee, or their authorized representative, collects the mail and it ceases being the Postal Service’s responsibility.

Breaking the Sutton mail problem down into parts, it appears the only problem was the name Sutton Island instead of a P.O. box. The Sutton Islanders should get one P.O. box, have their mail addressed at Northeast Harbor instead of Sutton Island. They could again pay Beal & Bunker Boat and Ferry to be their authorized representative and the postal bureaucracy could continue in its belief that Sutton Island does not exist.

J. Clayton Bright

Islesford