The editor of the ShoreLine Times said the newspaper is working on resuming mail delivery in several communities, following complaints about delivery by carrier of the free community weekly.

"To the residents in Clinton, Killingworth, Westbrook, Old Saybrook, Chester, Deep River, Essex and Old Lyme — we hear you," Susan Braden wrote in a letter posted this week on the newspaper's website. "And we hope to better serve you. Many readers in those communities have raised concerns about our carrier delivery system. We’d like to put the ShoreLine Times back in the mail to those communities, delivered to your home at no cost to you each week, but we need your help."

The letter lists ways residents can request the newspaper. If they receive enough signatures, the newspaper can qualify as a "requester periodical," which lowers the postage rate.

"....For those currently getting carrier delivery, this won’t change overnight, but we are working on it," the letter continues. "As we get more and more signatures, the closer we will be to getting a special postal rate that allows us to resume sending the paper through the mail at no cost to our readers, and continue to offer affordable advertising for local businesses...."

A portion of Lyme also is included in the communities where the ShoreLine Times, a publication of the New Haven Register, hopes to resume mail delivery in the future, but details were not available from the New Haven Register on Friday.

Last month, the first selectmen of Lyme, Old Lyme, Old Saybrook, Westbrook, Essex, Chester and Deep River wrote in a letter to the ShoreLine Times that residents were complaining that the newspapers — delivered in plastic bags by carrier — were ending up in streets or on private property.

The town officials wrote that they considered the bags and newspapers to be "litter," which is subject to fines under state law. 

On Friday, Old Saybrook First Selectman Carl Fortuna said he still is receiving complaints from residents, but expressed optimism that the issue hopefully would resolve itself once the ShoreLine Times gets the word out and people respond.

He said he will personally sign up for mail delivery, noting that he does not object to receiving the ShoreLine Times, but does not want it strewn all over town.

"Anything that has them not throwing papers randomly on every driveway in our town and our neighboring towns is progress," Fortuna said.

Meanwhile, a proposed bill to require publishers of any free, unsolicited newspaper to include a notice — printed on the first or second page, or attached to or delivered with the newspaper — on how to stop delivery has been reported out of the General Assembly's Planning and Development Committee and has been placed on the House calendar.

k.drelich@theday.com