Mokena trustees approve ordinance setting guidelines on reimbursement for mailboxes damaged by Village vehicles

By JON DEPAOLIS, Publisher

MOKENA, Ill. — In an effort to shield the Village of Mokena from possible false reimbursement claims for mailboxes that are alleged to have been damaged by snowplows, the Board of Trustees voted 4-1 Monday, Nov. 22, to an ordinance amendment establishing guidelines and conditions for when the Village would dole out funds.

Trustee Melissa Fedora cast the dissenting ballot, and Trustee George Metanias was absent.

During the discussion of the item, Mokena Public Works Director Jim Kulesa said that the Village reviewed five years of work order data while researching the issue.

“I believe in looking at data and seeing the trends that come out of that data, and then to determine whether or not we should take action against that or not,” he said. “We had two requests for reimbursement in 2017 for mailbox damage, but it has continued to escalate in an exponential manner until last year when we saw 56.”

Kulesa said that he believes many of the mailboxes in the Village “are not even close to meeting” the standards set by the United States Postal Service (USPS).

“We recognize that there is going to be some damage to mailboxes by the snowplow trucks,” he said. “It’s slippery out there, and occasionally we are going to hit one. Those things happen. But when a mailbox is leaning out into the street, and we are asked to clear [snow] to the curb, it gets complicated.”

During the research phase, Kulesa said he identified eight communities near Mokena that have a written policy or ordinance in place regarding replacing mailboxes damaged by municipal vehicles.

“We used the surrounding Village ordinances and guidelines to create this proposed ordinance,” he said. “We reviewed it with the board members for comment [previously] and made some adjustments.”

The new ordinance requires that the mailbox must have met the USPS guidelines prior to being damaged, and that the mailbox’s owner must inform the Village, so a work order is created at the time of the incident. If the criteria are met, the ordinance will allow for up to $150 of reimbursement to the resident to repair or replace the mailbox.

“We want to start tracking a list of mailboxes throughout the Village [that are] in poor condition,” Kulesa added. “Our intent is to have our snowplow drivers who run those routes bring the concerns of the mailboxes that are in poor condition on their routes, take a picture of them, keep a record of it. … We would then work with Community Development in notifying residents of those mailboxes that are not up to code to bring them up to code, but then also to note if there is damage there would be no reimbursement.”

Kulesa also told the board members that there would be some ability for reimbursement for damaged decorative mailboxes — but with limitations.

“We don’t want to eliminate that, but I would say that many of the ordinances around the area do not allow for the replacement of decorative mailboxes — or only in very rare cases,” he said. “We just want to make sure that if we do something like that and there is going to be a significant expenditure that we have some ability to [determine] that it was actually hit by the public works or somebody with the Village.”

Per the new ordinance, a resident must provide evidence that the decorative mailbox was hit or damaged by a Public Works vehicle. Kulesa said if the mailbox is leaning out into the roadway and is damaged by snow being shoveled to the curb by the plows, there would be no reimbursement.

Prior to the vote, Trustee Jim Richmond thanked Kulesa for putting together the amended ordinance.

“I think it is time that we looked at this, because a lot of these mailboxes were put in 20 or 30 years ago,” Richmond said. “As you know, wood starts to rot and deteriorate. I think we are taking an action that helps the taxpayers.”