The Jungle Terrace Civic Association is organizing a boycott of the Postal Service to bring mail back to the neighborhood's porches. They're going to war. Unwilling to wait longer while officials sort things out, residents upset with curbside mailboxes are taking their cause to the streets with a demonstration planned Saturday at the main St. Petersburg Post Office. Meanwhile, some neighborhood leaders are calling for a Postal Service boycott, asking residents to stop mailing items and buying postage as a way to cut postal revenue. The tactics are aimed at forcing the Post Office to stop what some residents believe is a campaign to cover the city with curbside boxes.
Postal officials say the boxes go in only as a safety factor for mail carriers.
Petition and letter-writing efforts also are under way, Plice said. So is a media campaign, whose current star is Colby, a year-old sheltie that became the focus of a curbside box episode on 33rd Avenue N. Colby has been on television at least twice. Our program is designed for the safety of our letter carriers. . . . I'm dismayed that some individuals don't want to support a safe environment for the letter carriers. The City Council, which has faced the curbside issue off and on for the past two years, last week directed city staff to assess the current situation and report back on July 15.