Mail Challenges in Eastern Collier Leads to Proposed Legislation

Dear Chokoloskee: You still don’t have mail. Or, you’ve got mail — but where is it? A seven-year debacle in smaller postal code regions of Collier County, particularly Chokoloskee, where the U.S. Postal Service suspended their post office operations, leaves 1,000 residents scrambling for how to send mail, buy stamps, and receive packages. Medications, passports, and irreplaceable items have been lost and misdirected.

“The residents are up in arms,” said Pastor Jesse Wilson of Chokoloskee Church of God.

While there have been improvements in recent months when Everglades City Post Office began handling nearby Chokoloskee’s mail, there are still a lot of problems, residents and officials report.

The situation became so bleak that Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Miami) of District 26 introduced a Bill to address the USPS dysfunction, said his press secretary Andrea Morales.

The Bill he introduced, HR 8303, is dubbed “The Post Office Closure Accountability Act,” requiring the USPS to notify postal customers and their relevant governing officials when operations are suspended at a post office, even if temporarily.

Currently, USPS is only required to notify people of a closure.

“The USPS has been using the ‘suspension’ loophole, even if temporary, to avoid reporting these closures to communities, local officials and members of Congress,” Morales wrote.

Details of the USPS’s plan moving forward remain minimal, though they are reportedly investigating property options on Chokoloskee following pressure from Díaz-Balart and residents.

Lack of information has led to mail blunders, frustration, travel delays, and even medical dilemmas.

Should the Bill pass, the USPS must provide information, including the date of suspension of operations, reason, plans for providing services during the suspension, plans for resuming operation, and an estimated timeframe.

Another critical aspect of the Bill that Díaz-Balart introduced is that “replacement retail postal services must be provided in the same geographic area as the suspended post office.”

This legislation became critical as the U.S. Postal Service had sent memos to residents informing them of options, including sending them to Marco Island for services. The drive from Chokoloskee to Marco Island is approximately 35 miles. It could take Chokoloskee residents more than one and a half hours for mail-related errands— tasks that many people in other regions of Collier County likely take for granted as taking seconds or minutes.

Somewhat ironically, Chokoloskee is perhaps best known for having one of Collier County’s first post offices, with Ted Smallwood as postmaster in the early 1900s. It was located in what is now the Smallwood Store, owned and operated by Ted Smallwood’s granddaughter, Lynn McMillin.

When asked if she might consider reopening a post office at the turn of the century building, McMillin smiled and said, “No.”

“It’s ridiculous,” she said.

Still, the postmaster ways must run in the family DNA because McMillin’s granddaughter, Rachel McMillin, 24, said she has aspirations of becoming a postmistress in the county — though perhaps not on the remote island of which she was born, she said while working behind the Store’s counter, much like her ancestors had before her, with her own daughter, Michelle, five, playing near the life-size replica of the late Ted Smallwood. 

In the meantime, Chokoloskee residents are picking up mail in Everglades City, just about five miles off the island. However, that post office isn’t suited for serving two communities, residents said.

During different stages of Chokoloskee’s ongoing “suspended” postal service, trips to the nation’s smallest post office, the shed in Ochopee, are about 20 minutes each way from Chokoloskee, making it a bit closer than Marco Island, but still not an improvement, residents said. Ochopee residents also report that their USPS mail is often lost as well.

Among the frustrations is when Everglades City Post Office began handling Chokoloskee’s mail, items were often sent back for the most minor of reasons. Some mail operations would not allow for a post office box while others required it, putting some residents in a Catch-22, having medications or documents lost due to a sender’s minor infractions of only including the PO Box or only including the street address. The post office does not deliver to street address mailboxes in Chokoloskee.

The mail kerfuffle has been ongoing for seven years since Hurricane Irma in 2017, residents report. Since that time, Chokoloskee residents and landowners have attempted to work with the USPS to help find solutions.

Owners of HavAnnA Cafe, which is now temporarily closed for summer, had offered some of their property in Chokoloskee to rent to the USPS, which the USPS did. However, when the USPS portion of the property was damaged from Hurricane Ian, the owners did not repair the damages to the post office portion and the USPS didn’t step up to make the repairs either.

The USPS also operated in Chokoloskee temporarily out of trucks.

Chokoloskee residents have been shuffled around from location to location with little or no notice for years. The Everglades City Post Office tends to send mail back to senders rather than deliver now more than had ever occurred prior, residents report.

“Everglades City is not built to handle two communities,” said Wilson.

His church, Chokoloskee Church of God, hosted a public meeting organized by USPS in May when many part-time residents had left for the season.

“Residents here feel like they are eliminating who we are,” said Wilson.

Since that time, the USPS has backed down from warning that they will not reopen in Chokoloskee to reporting that they’re seeking options.

Chokoloskee, with 1,000 residents, has more residents than Everglades City, with approximately 400 residents, noted Wilson. Seasonal populations oscillate considerably. Chokoloskee now has temporary PO boxes that sometimes receive mail and sometimes do not. Similarly, in Ochopee, there are fewer than 200 residents receiving mail there.

However, Ochopee is profitable because it is a popular tourist destination, being the smallest U.S. Post Office in a quaint white shed easily accessible by tourists traveling along U.S. 41, USPS officials said. One of the profitable operations there is the selling of post cards with a picture of the Ochopee Post Office and stamps to go with them, USPS officials reported. Tourists often write to friends and family back home and send postcards directly on-site.

None of this helps Chokoloskee, though. While USPS officials said they’re investigating suitable locations and considering if any meet their guidelines for a post office, details of those guidelines were not disclosed.

“I just finally got a bill from June of last year all crumpled,” said Wilson.

While the USPS has stated they are researching locations for a Post Office, and several residents have offered land and locations, Wilson is skeptical that the search is being unnecessarily delayed.

“They could take care of Chokoloskee. There are so many things they could do,” said Wilson. “Property has been offered to them. When we had our own post office, it worked smoothly,” he said.