Going Postal Out to Swan’s Island

by Mike Crowe

United States postal service to Swan’s Island and neighboring Frenchboro, Long Island, Maine, was in jeopardy for months, according to residents of Swan’s Island. The settlement of a dispute between a U.S. mail contractor and the U.S. Postal Service appears to have been resolved as of October 4, 2016.

The change in service threatened to discontinue shipments of food, medical and school supplies as well as the U.S. mail.

United States postal service to Maine’s inhabited islands, as well as the inhabited islands in the rest of the United States, remains important for many of the same reasons the postal service was important when it was established by Benjamin Franklin in 1775. Communication and transportation to islands can be difficult and dependent on weather.

Postal service to most of these islands travels with the freight that residents survive on. Combining mail and freight has been the only practical and financially feasible arrangement since Franklin recognized the importance of effective communications for the new nation.

According to a petition from the islands’ residents, in March 2016 the USPS forced L.J. Hopkins to end his family’s 60-year tenure by requiring that nothing other than the mail be transported in Hopkins’ vehicle. That meant a long period of uncertainty for mail and freight service to the islands. While the threat to service was recently resolved, islanders are at a loss to explain why this action was initiated.

For over 60 years, the Hopkins family has served the Swan’s Island and Frenchboro communities. Hopkins, d/b/a Swan’s Island Freight, “has been dedicated to the well-being of the Island residents, six days a week, no matter the season or weather, for 23 of those years,” the petition continues. The petition says, “This arbitrary change in service scope, which was in direct conflict with his contract, has put the very existence of two small island communities off the coast of Maine in jeopardy.”

The USPS regional media contact in Boston, Steve Doherty, said he knew of no complaint regarding the service Hopkins provided. Doherty also said nothing else could be carried in the vehicle with the U.S. mail.

Brian Krafjack, owner of The Island Market and Supply, the only market on Swan’s Island, said in early September 2016 that all the freight that supplies his businesses is brought to Swan’s Island in Hopkins’ van along with the U.S. mail. When the last extension contract was presented it required that the U.S. mail be carried in a separate vehicle without freight. Hopkins had to decline that contract because of the vehicle requirement. Since Hopkinds did not have a boat, Krafjack, as a sub-contractor, sailed the mail to Frenchboro in his 34’ Wilbur.

According to reports, Hopkins has a shoreside warehouse with refrigeration. He stores goods until the islands needs them. He operates a van to bring freight—food, medical and school supplies—and the U.S. mail to the two islands.

Islanders wrote letters to the editors of regional newspapers (See fishermensvoice.com for the issues of September and October 2016). Help was sought in Augusta. The petition went to US Postmaster General Brennan, Governor LePage, Senator Collins, Senator King, Congressman Poliquin, the Southwest Harbor Board of Selectmen, the Postal Regulatory Commission, USPS Contracting Officer Helen Hynes, USPS Purchasing Analyst Vito Minkiewicz, and Southwest Harbor Post Master Mary Saucier.

A retired New York City attorney and Swan’s Island summer resident came forward and offered to help. He teamed up with a Venable LLP attorney, an international firm with a USPS specialty in defending plaintiffs and defendants. Venable, working pro bono, filed a bid protest which was served on the Department of Justice and the USPS. The pre-filing notice was enough to elicit a request to negotiate from USPS lawyers.

“We were being treated differently and wrongly,” said Krafjack. When a new contract was awarded to Hopkins, Krafjack, Saucier and anyone else close to the case was not allowed to talk with the press about it.

U.S. mail contracts at Swan’s Island, along with freight, has been restored.

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” These well-known words, not an official motto of the USPS, are carved into Maine granite on New York City’s James Farley Post Office. The author might have been wise to add an exception for bureaucracy and the peculiar and unpredictable vagaries of human behavior.