NEWPORT BEACH

Newport Dunes officials have asked the postal inspector to investigate charges that a local environmentalist tricked postal workers into holding City Hall-bound letters sent in support of the proposed resort.

The officials claim a supervisor from the post office on Camelback Street, who was not identified, sent a letter on June 19 to Newport Dunes officials claiming Newport Beach-based activist Susan Caustin, misrepresenting herself as a Dunes employee, asked postal workers to hold the mailings.

Resort officials had distributed hundreds of fliers, with pre-stamped postcards addressed to Mayor John E. Noyes affixed to them, to Newport Beach homes two weeks ago. The fliers instructed supporters of the 470-room, four-story hotel project to mail the postcards.

Caustin said she wouldn’t be so foolish to use her own name if she was misrepresenting herself.

“That’s really absurd,” said Caustin, who has spoken out against developers’ plans to build the massive Dunes waterfront resort on the undeveloped southeastern portion of the Back Bay. “I’m still fighting the project, but it’s not worth me going to the U.S. postmaster’s jail for it.”

Caustin said she asked a postal worker to verify that Dunes officials had used proper postage. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service said the employee normally handling business reply postage was on vacation. His replacement chose to err on the conservative side by holding the mail, she said.