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The Naked Truth: Owner of White Tail Park speaks out about postal workers’ complaints

Posted at 4:33 PM, May 11, 2012
and last updated 2012-05-11 22:36:56-04

NewsChannel 3 brought you the story of two Ivor letter carriers who filed a complaint because they said they encountered naked people while delivering mail to a nudist resort.

Now the owner of White Tail Park came out swinging to deliver what he believes is the “naked truth.”

The owner of the resort invited us inside to peel back the mystery of what goes on beyond the gates of White Tail Park . 

If this is a typical day, we found a lot of park, but very few tails, so to speak.

“It's just a gorgeous place that's very family-oriented,” says Bob Roche, the owner of White Tail Park.

Bob says no one was more surprised than he when he learned two Ivor letter carriers were offended and filing formal EEOC complaints.

Darden Gillette and Yoder Starr said they were confronted by nude residents outside the gates as they serviced the mailboxes.

"Nobody, but nobody goes outside of that gate nude, ever,” says Bob.

The letter carriers filed a formal EEOC complaint saying the park is making their workplace uncomfortable and cited specific examples of unwanted nudity while delivering mail.  Bob has questions about the story.

"For instance, he claims it was ten inches in front of his face,” says Bob. “He would have to be one of those basketball players that are about eight-feet tall to be eye-to-eye with him.”

What you do see is a sign at the gates warning residents ‘stop no nudity beyond this point.'  

Inside the gates, there were a few residents who were walking and riding lawnmowers in the buff, so Bob finds it curious that he hasn't heard one single complaint from any other people who deliver to the park.

“We have FedEx that comes in here every day, UPS comes in here every day, Coca Cola, Pepsi, none of them are offended because they know this is a business,” says Bob.

So if it’s not about the business of being nude, what is it about? 

Bob says there have been a lot of missed deliveries at the resort, slow mail, wrong addresses and he says he's called the Ivor post office to complain.

Bob says recently, he gave some misdirected mail back to Darden Gillette fully clothed, and the exchange went downhill quickly.

“He went postal on me. He started screaming ‘you don't know how much mail I deliver every day, everyone is allowed to make a lot of mistakes’ I was scared for my life at that time. I just backed up and said ‘I just handed you a piece of mail, that’s all,’” says Bob.

Attorney Neil Bonney, who represents the letter carriers, is still waiting for the agency to respond to the complaint.  He says if the U.S. Postal Service simply moves the boxes onto public property where the carriers won`t be exposed to nudity, the matter could be resolved very quickly.