Arnold leaders have reached out to U.S. Rep. Jason Smith for help to solve their problems with the U.S. Postal Service.
The agency closed the city’s Post Office at 1314 Jeffco Blvd. on Jan. 31 and set up a temporary location in the parking lot outside the former Here Today store at 2184 Michigan Ave., where a new Post Office will open once renovations are completed.
The USPS has not said when that work might be completed, though.
On April 5, Arnold Mayor Ron Counts and councilmen EJ Fleischmann, Gary Plunk, Rodney Mullins, Butch Cooley, Mark Hood, Bill Moritz, Jason Fulbright and Brian McArthur sent a letter to Smith (R-8th District) asking for his assistance.
“We are hoping the federal government who is in charge of the postal system would take a look at the terrible response we are getting at a local level about the federally run Post Office,” Counts said. “We are really disgusted. There is not a day that goes by, hardly, that I don’t get remarks from our residents about how upset they are about how the Post Office is being handled. I don’t think there is an excuse for it.
“I know Jason Smith has been very outspoken, and we are hoping he will be able to help us in this situation.”
The letter says city officials have received questions about where mail from Arnold is being processed and complaints about delays in delivery.
The letter also bashes the temporary location set up in the Water Tower shopping plaza parking lot.
The temporary setup has two mobile units and a blue collection box, and at first, the mobile units were not staffed because there was no internet service.
The unit is now staffed from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays.
However, the letter says the mobile units have limited protection from inclement weather, and customers will be exposed to either extreme cold or heat if multiple people are waiting for service.
“We believe our citizens deserve better service than this from our Post Office, and we hope that improvements can be made,” the letter says.
“People are really disgusted,” Counts said. “I don’t think there is an excuse for it. They have had plenty of time to prepare for it, and they have failed. It is our tax dollars paying for it, and I am pretty frustrated about it.”
The Postal Service is not funded by taxes. It is funded through fees for products and services.
The Postal Service sent postcards to Arnold residents in June 2022 about a proposal to relocate the office within 2 miles of the existing office. The postcard said the new location was needed because the Postal Service’s lease was ending at its previous location.
Mark Inglett, a U.S. Postal Service strategic communications specialist, said the lease expired on Jan. 31.
He said the U.S. Postal Service is completing the design for the new Post Office, and it expects to begin renovating the space in the spring or early summer. He did not say when the renovation is expected to be completed or when the new Post Office may open.
“The delivery of mail and packages to our customers will not be affected during this transition. Arnold is a very important community to the Postal Service,” he said in February. “Our goal was to have our new facility nearby and to continue providing the same level of exceptional service to our customers”
A Chase Bank branch will be built where the former Arnold Post Office was located. The Post Office building has been demolished, and a new full-service branch will be built.
A bank spokesman said the new branch is expected to open in late summer.