Post office tells Eyman to stop dumping old mail

For seven years, Tim Eyman, the guru of tax-cutting initiatives, has been using the Wallingford post office as his own private recycling center, most recently backing a van up to a loading bay and dumping reams of postcards from his mail-order watch business.

Eyman says someone at the post office had been granting him special permission to do it — but no more.

After Eyman's drop-off earlier this month, someone complained, and postal managers now say Eyman is no longer welcome to use the taxpayer-supported recycling bins for his private business. They also want him to collect his postcards.

"We're talking about a third of a whole Dumpster here," said Walter Hall, manager of the Wallingford postal station at 1329 N. 47th St. "He says he was told about seven years ago by a supervisor that he could dump them once a year. But I've been calling around to different managers and supervisors, and I have yet to verify that."

One post-office employee confirmed she had let Eyman use the bins earlier this month.

Meantime, a large mail-sorting hamper filled with some of Eyman's leftover postcards has been sitting on a loading dock awaiting Eyman's return. But a reunion is unlikely.

Eyman yesterday insisted he still has permission to use the Postal Service bins, especially given how much money he spends on direct mail for his watch business and for mailings supporting his initiatives to cut taxes and control government spending.

He said raising the issue was an "absolutely pathetic" attempt by opponents of his initiatives to sully his name.

"We have a mail-order company, and when we mail out millions of pieces of mail every year, we end up paying a lot of money to the post office," he said. "If this is the best the opposition can come up with, our next initiative will win in a landslide. Talk about grasping at straws."

It was postal workers who raised the issue after Eyman drove up Nov. 3 and unloaded stacks of the postcards into a recycling bin.

When the stacks overflowed the bin, which holds 6 cubic yards of paper and was already two-thirds full, he filled up a smaller mail hamper with the rest, postal workers say.

The colorful cards advertise watches with the logos of college fraternities. The cards bear the name of his company, Insignia Corp., and Eyman's home address in Mukilteo.

The supervisors on duty confronted Eyman, Hall said. But they let the cards stay when he told them he had special permission.

The next week, a supervisor called Insignia and told Eyman to retrieve the cards, Hall said.

And Hall said one supervisor called Seattle police to file an illegal-dumping report. Police yesterday were unable to find the report.

In the meantime, the cards Eyman put in the post-office bins have been hauled away at Postal Service expense.

Eyman said he doesn't plan to retrieve the rest of the cards because he called another station supervisor, Brenda Murphy, and "got the whole thing straightened out."

In years past, he said, he got permission from yet another station manager, who was out of town yesterday and couldn't be reached.

But Murphy agreed she granted Eyman permission this time.

"There's no problem," she said. The cards will be put in the bins for regular pickup, she said.

But station manager Hall, who is Murphy's boss, said he still expects Eyman to collect his cards. Hall said he would never grant special permission to Eyman, or anyone else, to use the bins.

And Ernie Swanson, a regional spokesman for the Postal Service, said doing so would be against the rules.

"I can't imagine we'd give a private individual the authority to dump a bunch of stuff in our Dumpsters," Swanson said. "We'd be paying his garbage bill if we did that."

According to Waste Management, the company that collects recycling from the Wallingford post office, the Postal Service pays $376 a month for twice-a-week recycling collection there.

Eyman could have taken his cards another 13 blocks to the city's recycling transfer station near Gas Works Park and dropped them off for free.

It's doubtful Eyman would face any legal entanglements over the issue. Police issued no citations and seemed unaware of the complaint. And postal managers said they won't be pressing charges.

"We'll just take care of it, that's all," said Hall.