Spanish Fort seeks Washington meeting on post office

Posted

SPANISH FORT – Spanish Fort city officials hope to meet with U.S. Postal Service representatives and Alabama congressional delegation members in Washington in upcoming weeks in an effort to prevent the closing of the city post office scheduled for Jan. 15.

Mayor Mike McMillan said he has been talking to Sen. Richard Shelby and other congressional representatives to set up meetings on the closing.

“We’re in ongoing negotiations with our legislative delegation with the post office,” McMillan said. “I’m waiting for a call, if the Post Office will agree to it, a meeting between the city and the Post Office to talk about terms,”

The city of Spanish Fort filed an appeal of the closing on Wednesday, Dec. 23. “It is the position of the city that the Postal Service has failed to adhere to the applicable laws, rules and regulations governing the discontinuance of post office,” the appeal letter said.

A city statement released when the appeal was filed said Spanish Fort officials hope the Postal Regulatory Commission and the Postal Service will consider the appeal and stop the closing of the Post Office.

The city is also collecting signatures on a petition asking the Postal Service to not close the post office.

“Also, the petition is out there. Please get everyone you can to sign,” McMillan told City Council members on Monday, Dec. 21. “Just get as many names as you can get on that. They don’t have to live in the city of Spanish Fort as long as they use the post office.”

The petition is available on the city of Spanish Fort website – www.cityofspanishfort.com.

The Spanish Fort Post Office is a contract post office, which is a partnership with a private vendor to provide services to a community, according to postal officials. The current Spanish Fort contract expires Jan. 15. Bids on a new contract closed on Dec. 7, but no new contract has been approved.

In an earlier statement, Debra Fetterly, USPS spokeswoman, said that if a new post office is approved for Spanish Fort, plans do not call for the facility to have post office boxes. Spanish Fort post office box holders have been notified that they can have their mail delivered to their street address or to a new post office box in Daphne.

City officials and residents said the change would require boxholders, including businesses and the city of Spanish Fort, to change addresses, letterheads and other listings to include a new address with a post office box number in Daphne.

McMillan said the Spanish Fort post office has been in service for about 50 years and serves the city’s almost 10,000 residents and about the same population living outside the corporate limits.

Earlier in December, U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, who represents southwest Alabama in Congress, said that he had been told that a new post office was planned that would allow residents to continue using their post office boxes. He said he later learned that the Postal Service did not plan any new facility with boxes in Spanish Fort.

Byrne will leave office when his term expires in January. Bradley Jaye, a spokesman for Byrne, said their office is working with incoming representative Jerry Carl on the issue. “We have briefed Congressman-elect Carl’s team on the issue and understand that they will be tackling the issue on day one,” Jaye said Tuesday, Dec. 22.