In November, Amazon began delivering directly to Friday Harbor residents, cutting locally owned Aeronautical Services that contracts with United Parcel Service out of the equation.

The change resulted in driver layoffs and the potential for ferries cluttered with off-island delivery trucks.

Washington State Ferries initially allowed Amazon to use Lot C in Friday Harbor as a storage and staging area to free up space on the ferries, but after backlash from Aeronautical Services, concerned citizens and the Town of Friday Harbor, that agreement has been discontinued.

Amazon is now looking for a new location to park their vehicles and sort packages, which islanders are hoping will result in either rent dollars or tax dollars going back into the small town’s economy rather than more jobs and revenue siphoning slowly to the mainland. Amazon uses a Delivery Service Partner based in Burlington.

Amazon deliveries to Orcas and Lopez are still being delivered by Aeronautical/UPS and the United States Postal Service.

Layoffs and Lot C

Aeronautical Services’ driver Jake Knapp was confused when he first saw Amazon drivers on the island in November.

“We heard they were on island to help with the holiday rush, but we didn’t really have a holiday rush this year,” Knapp said. “So we thought it was kind of weird that they were here. Then the couple weeks they said they were going to do that turned into longer, and I realized we might be in trouble.”

Once it became clear that it wasn’t a short-term plan, and WSF Lot C was being used for truck storage and package sorting, reality set in for the family-owned company that’s delivered packages around the islands for more than 50 years. The loss of Amazon deliveries has resulted in eight Aeronautical layoffs — including Knapp —with more on the horizon.

Marc Franklin, Aeronautical Vice President, sent emails to the Town of Friday Harbor and WSF, trying to understand what was going on.

“Amazon delivery has not had to take the time and expense to secure a long-term parking and package sorting location on the island,” Franklin explained in his email. “It requires huge expenses and time to get permanently set up in the islands and maintain a reliable year-round delivery service. The imported off-island Amazon delivery drivers are displacing our local island jobs at both Aeronautical and the Post Office, and they are spending their island-earned paychecks outside the local San Juan Island economy.”

Franklin explained that Amazon keeps the routes with the easiest and most cost-effective deliveries while Aeronautical only has “the inefficient, top of every mountain, and end of every long pothole-lined gravel road.”

Citizens shared his confusion and concern over a state-owned parking lot being used for Amazon storage and distribution.

“There were cancelations and things, so they actually had to use Lot C that day,” Tawnee Morang, Friday Harbor resident, said of the first time she saw Amazon using the lot. “Half of it was full of people that were staging for the ferry, and the other half was full of a big Amazon box truck and all of their vans. They were sorting out all the packages and had hand trucks and they were blocking that whole side. They told me they had a deal to be able to use it.”

The County and Town

Justin Paulsen, newly elected to the San Juan County Council but a long-time member and current chair of the Ferry Advisory Committee, received Franklin’s email.

“I recommended he go to the Town of Friday Harbor,” Paulsen said. “Because what WSF was touting as a wonderful partnership was not anything that we were involved in at the Ferry Advisory Level or at the county level. We were informed this was happening — not consulted.”

While Paulsen shares Franklin’s concerns about potential issues with off-island businesses taking over established on-island employers, he’s also upfront about how little influence the county has over business strategies like this.

“There’s no business licensing program here; they’re not selling anything so we can’t look into anything with sales tax allocation,” he said. “We talk about tourist dollars a lot when discussing the economy here, but these are direct employment dollars to our community members, which are the most important that we want to maintain because it’s working incomes for our local families. But we really have a real lack of jurisdiction in requiring how these businesses do their work. The best we can do is support our local businesses and try and offer them the support we can to keep dollars as local as possible.”

When asked what that looks like, he laughed.

“I mean, that’s the question. How does one bring Amazon to the table?”

Ryan Ericson, Community Development and Planning Director for the Town of Friday Harbor, is the person best positioned to do just that when it comes to Lot C.

“Lot C is owned by WSF, but it’s within the town of Friday Harbor and we have rules,” Ericson said. “It’s a commercially zoned property. We don’t allow outdoor storage or warehouse distribution to occur in the commercial area. Parking of vehicles would be considered outdoor storage, and transferring packages from a truck to delivery trucks is distribution. It’s a no.”

Washington State Ferries

John Vezina, Senior Director of External Relations at WSF, has been fielding many questions and comments about Lot C over the last few months. Initially, it was from Amazon, informing him of their plans and asking how the ferries would work for their fleet of delivery trucks. Then it was from people in Friday Harbor, saying they thought it was a great idea because Lot C is actually a nuisance — full of abandoned cars — and maybe activity over there would help things. Others were thrilled about the two-day shipping, less pressure on the Post Office, and overall better access to shipped goods for islanders.

But then the tone started to shift.

“Amazon came to WSF after making the decision to do direct shipments to residents in the San Juans in order to understand the reservation system,” Vezina said. “Understanding the number of vehicles that would put on an already constrained system, I worked with them on options. I could picture this fleet of vans and people on reservation day trying to get space and how frustrated they would be. I talk to these people all the time. Lot C is rarely used and could mean only one truck on the ferry instead. However, understanding the community concern, we will be looking at that decision and whether or not the agreement should be ended.”

The agreement has been discontinued since Vezina’s interview.

Amazon dressed in small business clothing

Friday Harbor isn’t the only community impacted by this shift, which began years ago in many areas, in Amazon’s delivery practices. Amazon touts its Delivery Service Partner program as not only a way to lessen delivery times but also a way to build up small business owners. It’s even helping finance startup costs through something called Road to Ownership. In exchange, DSPs operate exclusively for Amazon, follow their protocols and requirements, and report the most minor of details back to the e-commerce giant. They have cameras in the delivery trucks that report directly to Amazon, according to an October article in the New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/10/business/economy/amazon-delivery-drivers-labor-nlrb.html.

“Amazon sets safety, compliance and quality standards and provides resources to help meet them,” Eileen Hards, Amazon spokesperson, told the Times as an explanation for the cameras.

Amazon is currently in hot water due to lawsuits, union complaints, and even a bipartisan group of 29 senators with specific concerns about whether the DSP program is a strategy for maintaining control over employment conditions without footing the bill.

In August 2024, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union claimed a preliminary victory against Amazon when the National Labor Relations Board regional director determined that Amazon jointly employed the delivery drivers of one of its DSPs.

“It could affect the whole franchise world,” Cathy Creighton, a former union attorney now with the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said to Bloomberg Law. “It sends a message loud and clear to anyone trying to contract to avoid their obligations under the law.” (https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/amazon-delivery-model-threatened-by-drivers-early-labor-law-win)

Seattle Final Mile and Roy Mannix

Underneath the whispered rumors about faceless corporations coming to take over the island and angry Facebook rants about off-islanders stealing island business is a guy named Roy Mannix and his company Seattle Final Mile, the Amazon DSP now delivering to San Juan Island.

In an interview with the Journal, some of Mannix’s responses reflected a small business family man with big dreams; others were steeped in the kind of language one would expect in closed-door Amazon meetings about layoffs and profits (with phrases like, “at the end of the day it’s bodies delivering packages”).

He worked in distribution at Amazon for years before starting his own DSP, and moved to Burlington from Seattle when the Amazon distribution center opened there. Mannix described rural delivery areas as “low-hanging fruit” and said he requested the San Juans route because he “always thought the islands were a good business opportunity,” but he also repeatedly expressed his desire to become more involved with the island community.

Mannix understands rural markets because he grew up in one. He has a wife and two small children under five. He hasn’t been able to make it to Chamber of Commerce meetings in Friday Harbor like he intended because his kids have been sick and it’s been hard to get out here. He says he understands the uncertainty toward his company from the island.

“Without more knowledge, it’s a totally valid perspective,” Mannix said of the fear around his company, Seattle Final Mile. “And I think some of it’s huge. I don’t think it’s irrational. I don’t think any of it’s unreasonable.”

Mannix was recently a part of the job fair held at the Grange, and his wife is working on putting together a Facebook page that allows for direct communication and feedback. He welcomes community members to reach out to him directly by emailing roy@seattlefinalmile.com.

“I would love to hire 100% on island,” Mannix said, clarifying later that his goal is to be 100% by mid-Q2. “I would love to hire community members that know which face is delivering to your doorstep, that know the anomalies and streets and some of those operational challenges. I want to add jobs, not take them away.”

Moving forward

Ultimately, the line between sides on this issue remains murky. Each involved party has some wins and some losses – except Aeronautical Services, which landed squarely in the loss column. However, not all winners in the situation are as cut and dry.

It could be the laid-off employees, who potentially could be rehired doing the same work, or even the same routes, but with a significant caveat of doing so under Amazon’s thumb, adhering to Amazon’s deadlines and Amazon’s rules.

It could be the islanders who can now get a package delivered in two days, although they may unknowingly send their dollars right off the island in exchange.

It might be WSF, which washed its hands of this problem after complaints and questioning caused Amazon to withdraw from using Lot C to fulfill its business needs.

Or perhaps it’s Mannix, who could conceivably step into 50+ years of island delivery infrastructure by Aeronautical, with added Amazon support, to build his own business. Although whether DSP owners are benefitting from or being exploited by their Amazon partnerships is up for debate.

What’s not as debatable is the fact that Amazon has accumulated another win — which is likely a tiny blip on its multi-billion-dollar radar — while Aeronautical Services is taking the loss, potentially impacting the future of a half-century island family legacy.

“Raising the question is going to start a conversation,” Paulsen pointed out. “Sometimes, that’s all it takes.”