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It’s a very confusing situation regarding mailbox sites. An absence of explanations and clarification by the Board inevitably leads to speculation. So, in this email, I want to briefly review the background of the investigation into site #1, briefly speculate on what happened at the Road Board meeting last Wednesday, and then report on the results of the School District meeting last night.

The following email exchange can be found on the groups.io website under the topic “School District Update” on April 8.

Jimmy wrote, “I spoke with the school district attorney?Roger Decker.?He has prepared the request of Fairfield District using the 40ft easement?for the school board to vote on next Tuesday.”?

I wrote: “I think we need to be completely up-front with the attorney and school district.” By “up-front”, I meant tell the school district that there is no easement.

Jimmy replied, “I think it would be wise to not provide any information that may complicate the matter or potentially not work in our favor.”?

The School Board meeting that Jimmy was referring to was April 13, but our proposal wasn’t on the agenda. I watched that meeting on Google Meet and our request came up at the very end under "Request for Future Agenda Items". It was agreed that use of the easement would be considered at the meeting in May.

The agenda for School District meeting last night, May 11, read, “It is recommended that the Governing Board discuss and take action regarding the request from the Cochise County Fairfield Road Improvement District to grant an easement for the installation of a mailbox cluster on an easement approximately 16 feet by 30 feet located on the school site at the ?intersection of S. Fairfield Circle and 3 Canyon Blvd.”

Obviously, the Road District Board changed its approach, was up-front with the School Board, told them there was no easement, and is now asking the School District to grant one. That’s good! That’s legal.

Many of us thought that when the surveyors came, they were going to locate the western property line for sites #1 west and #3 west. But they didn’t. They staked the property line for site #1 east. It’s now obvious to anyone driving the road that the Road District owns only 3’ to 5’ east of the road. Since the concrete base of the mailboxes is 4’wide, it’s also obvious to most of the community that there isn’t room on our property east of the road for mailboxes. I would be surprised if the Postmaster would approve a site on the east side of the road on our property because it would require the Postal carrier to park in the full right lane of the road while filling the mailboxes. That wouldn’t be safe.

An item on the Road District meeting last Wednesday was “Vote on mailbox location”. This struck me as really odd and premature since the proposal to the School Board was pending and there had been no attempt to contact the property owner of site #3.

At the meeting, Jimmy said something to the effect, “Let’s vote site #1 the favorite because we own the land.” Those probably aren’t his exact words, and I don’t recall if he mentioned east or west, but I do know he said, “we own the land”. I assumed that he meant site #1 west since it is obvious that the district doesn’t own enough land on the east side road for the boxes. I was all for it, and greatly relieved that we had finally decided on a site. There may have been a vote at that point; I don’t recall exactly, and I haven’t seen the minutes of the meeting.

Later, some woman sitting behind me who I can’t identify with certainty (but I’m most grateful to her) questioned if we had voted #1 east or #1 west the favorite. The Board may have replied #1 east, again, I don’t recall exactly. In any case, the members in the audience immediately responded that it should be #1 west. I noticed that the President looked very unhappy at this point.

I then asked if I could seek approval from the Postmaster for site #1 west and send a proposal to the 3 Canyons MDC. The President said yes, and I did both. The Chair of the MDC wants to meet at the site. I have no authority to do that alone, and as far has I know, the Road District Board has done nothing regarding the MDC Chair’s request.

Here is my speculation. I think the Board expected site #1 east “our own land” to be approved. They called for a vote before the School Board reached a decision because, if site #1 east had been approved at the Road District meeting, and then if the School Board approved the request, site #1 east would simply be expanded from “our own land” onto the School District easement. A simple expansion of an approved site most likely wouldn’t even require another vote because it would be such an obvious improvement. Part of their plan was to kill site #3, which the President has blocked forward movement on for several months. The plan worked to the extent that it killed site #3, but it backfired when the members in the audience voted for site #1 west.

As I was leaving the meeting last Wednesday, I heard the President discussing having an “Executive Session”. ?That struck me as really odd. What did the Board have to discuss that they didn’t wants the members to know about? Now I suspect it was the backfired plan. ?But this only speculation in absence of an explanation from the Board. I don’t know if there was an Executive Session, but there was certainly discussion of having one.

The School Board meeting last night was interesting. Ten minutes after the start they went into Executive Session to discuss the Road District Proposal. That session lasted a half-hour, and after returning they made no statement regarding their decision until near the end of the meeting more than an hour and half later.

I have the video of the School District discussion of the Road District proposal. It’s too large of a file to email and our free version of groups.io doesn’t allow files to be uploaded. Perhaps I could upload it to YouTube if anyone is interested. ?In any case, the School District Chair’s statement was, “I move to direct the superintendent to follow the instructions offered by our lawyer and begin the process of discussing the mailbox cluster request. Any conversation? And this is Roswell [that may be garbled captions] you’ll have an option of speaking with Mr. Becker, our lawyer, and take action with him to move this along, so that we can, in fact, honor the request and be good neighbors, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you.”

There was some brief discussion after that, and the Chair said they “would be following all the directions given us by our lawyer”. Wow! It sounds like there is a good chance they will grant the easement and allow us to install mailboxes. If they grant us 16’ by 30’ beyond our own property, then we can have a pull-out 20’deep (4' of our property plus 16' on the easement), which is much more spacious than site #1 west.

I’m certainly in favor of a 16’ by 30’ site on the School District easement over site #1 west. What is the next step? Do we move forward on site #1 west or do we wait on the School Board’s decision? I suggest we don’t overturn the vote for site #1 west until we know the School Board’s decision. If we’re waiting on the School Board, then out of courtesy we need to tell the GDC Chair that site #1 west is on hold at present. I will do that on Friday unless I get contrary instructions.

Sorry this was so long, but I think that this email explains our present confusing situation regarding mailbox sites. I welcome the Board to point out errors in my speculation.

Ken