An Arizona Daily Sun reporter gets to the bottom of a mailbox mystery in northern Arizona

Some residents of a community northeast of Flagstaff have had quite a bit of drama with their mail over the last couple of years.

People living in Doney Park were moved into group mailboxes several years ago; some had had mailboxes on their properties. But then, in 2024, a vehicle crashed into the communal mailboxes, damaging them.

That left residents needing to drive into Flagstaff to get their mail at the post office. And the process of getting their mail boxes put back up has been a bit of a saga.

Sam McLaughlin is a staff reporter for the Arizona Daily Sun, and has been following this. He spoke with The Show about the timeline — and if it’s right that some of the residents used to have individual mailboxes, then they were all moved into group ones, and then there was no mailbox at all.

Full conversation

SAM MCLAUGHLIN: That’s roughly it. A lot of residents in the area had their own mailboxes when they first moved in, although there were some who even from the start were using what the Postal Service calls cluster box units, or CBUs. Those are the mailboxes that kind of look like little sets of lockers, you know, with an individual box for each residence, all grouped together in one unit.

And then a few years ago, the Postal Service announced that everyone in this particular neighborhood of Doney Park would need to start using the CBU. It was located relatively close to them, you know, a short drive down the road to pick up your mail and back. So, from the folks I talked to, that wasn’t much of a major inconvenience.

The problem came when the CBU for this particular neighborhood got hit by a truck. And it was November 2024, the Postal Service came, picked it up, took it away and told the residents, "For the moment, you’re going to have to drive into the main post office in Flagstaff to pick up your mail." And that’s about a 10-mile drive each way.

MARK BRODIE: OK. And the residents pointed out some concerns about doing that, in addition to the distance, but like, it sounds like, you know, you basically, some of them anyway, had to wait in line to pick up their mail.

SAM MCLAUGHLIN: I think they all have to wait in line to pick up their mail when they’re doing it. So, when they drive into Flagstaff to go to the main post office, they’re not assigned a PO box. They have to wait for a clerk to be available, and then they can provide their name, their address, and pick up their mail that way.

So, it’s definitely more time-consuming in multiple ways than just going down to the end of the road to get your mail, and on days when the post office is particularly busy — think holidays — it can be a long wait for them to get their mail.

The other thing that some residents shared with me is that although there are a lot of retirees in the Doney Park area, and folks who might have the the flexibility in their schedule to go into Flagstaff, stand in line, wait to get their mail, there are also folks out there who are still working, and the post office is not open late. It’s not a place that has extended hours.

And so, for folks who are working and trying to juggle holding down a full-time job with still getting their mail, it can be very tricky to figure out how to make the time to get to the post office during business hours when they’re supposed to be at work.

MARK BRODIE: Did the post office say anything about why they didn’t assign these residents a PO box so they didn’t have to stand in line?

SAM MCLAUGHLIN: I don’t believe the post office or the Postal Service has responded to that particular question, no.

MARK BRODIE: OK. And in terms of getting their mailboxes back, as you report, it seems like the big issue is that nobody really knew who owned that little piece of land that the the CBU was on, and they couldn’t figure it out. Is that right?

SAM MCLAUGHLIN: That seemed to be the problem initially. So — I’m trying to recall the timeline of how this all happened in my head, so I was talking to the residents, I reached out to the Postal Service. The Postal Service spokesperson came back and said, "The parcel where the foundation slab for the CBUs is located is on private property, and we are waiting for permission from the property owner to be able to replace that concrete slab and put up new mailboxes."

So, when I heard that, I thought, "Well, who owns this?" And I immediately started looking at county property records. So, I went online, and I looked, and as far as I could tell, that little area was not part of any of the surrounding parcels. So, I drove out there myself, I talked to some of the neighbors, folks who own property or rent property that’s adjacent to that parcel, and everyone that I was able to speak to said, "I don’t own that, and I don’t know of anyone who does."

It’s right next to a Forest Service parcel, so I reached out to our local Forest Service office, that’s the Flagstaff Ranger District of the Coconino National Forest. They did some checking, they got back to me and said, "No, the boundary of our parcel is exactly where it shows up on the map." And there are physical markers on the ground that I observed that confirm that as well.

So, no one seemed to know just who owned this particular piece of land, and it’s not a large or impressive piece of land. It is really just a gravel pullout on the side of the road, but it seems like somehow it had been overlooked or maybe had just slipped through the cracks in all the years of development out there in Doney Park. This seemed like it just got forgotten, I guess.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so it turns out that it is not privately owned at all, it’s county land. How did the county maybe not realize it? And apparently, nobody else realized it, either.

SAM MCLAUGHLIN: As far as I can tell, like I just said, it it seemed to have slipped through the cracks. Yeah, the county eventually, after I contacted them and after residents had contacted them, did some additional work. They sent out surveyors to check, and they came back with a determination that that little gravel pullout was part of the county right of way. So, it’s not private property, it’s not federal property, it’s owned by the county.

MARK BRODIE: So, does this mean now that the USPS can go ahead and put a new set of mailboxes for these residents?

SAM MCLAUGHLIN: One would think. One would think now that it’s known who owns it, and it is the county, and the county has said that they’re happy to cooperate with USPS and get them the right approvals to put down a new concrete slab and put up new mailboxes.

At the last time I checked with USPS, their spokesperson said that they were still waiting on some sort of approval or permitting completion from the county. Once that’s done, they should be able to pour a new concrete slab that will be larger than the old one, and they should be able to install a new set of mailboxes. When that will happen, though, we still don’t know.

MARK BRODIE: How are residents handling this? I mean, it sounded like, you know, some of them are taking it in in stride, but it definitely felt like there is a sense of frustration with how long this has taken and sort of the path that it has taken.

SAM MCLAUGHLIN: Yeah, I think there is definitely frustration. I spoke to Delia Moder and Cassie Davidson, who both live out in that area, and they told me that they were frustrated by the delay and also just frustrated by the lack of communication from the Postal Service.

They felt that they hadn’t been getting clear information about the cause of the delay or when things might be resolved, and they did feel frustrated by that. They felt like, "We’re in a rural area, we’re being ignored." And obviously, this isn’t the most pressing issue in the world, but it is something that’s impactful for folks who live out there, and they would like to see it addressed and addressed in a more timely fashion, ideally.

MARK BRODIE: All right. That is Sam McLaughlin, a reporter with the Arizona Daily Sun. Sam, thanks so much. I appreciate it.