— by Margie Doyle —
Eastsound PostMaster Donna McNeil has a quandary.
When homeless people started sleeping in the lobby of the post office in Eastsound, she allowed it, because, well, she has a heart.
But now people are abusing the privilege, leaving messes, and worse, putting directories in boxes which means the bomb squad protocol has to be observed, taking up a lot of postal employees’ time.
Not wanting to lock up the lobby after hours, preventing people from getting their mail in the evenings, Donna hopes that people will notify the sheriff at 378-4151 if they see questionable after-hours activity.
If such activity continues, Donna will have to lock everybody out of the post office building after hours.
Please report questionable activity 378-4151 so that it will stop — and the lobby will remain open.
Is that too much to ask?
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Perhaps, if the building housing our U.S. Post Office, vital businesses plus other areas used by our mobile citizenry, such as the very precious Eastound commons next to the museum complex, need to be posted so that our authorities and property owners have the ability to process complaints in a legal manner. It’s sort of like signs which read “Don’t feed the bears” which go unheeded until there is an emergency situation which our upcoming season presents to our dedicated law enforcement officers. Drug use and other health issues may exacerbate this scenario as it does in the rest of the world. pameladoerr