Mendota Post Office Gets Five-Month Reprieve

The United States Post Office has agreed to a five-month reprieve for closing post offices and processing facilities throughout the country, according to a USPS statement released Tuesday.

The  has been under official review for  since summer, but no official decision on the location's fate has been made.

A on the matter brought dozens of residents out to voice their objections to closing the USPS location on Sibley Memorial Highway (Highway 13). They cited the location’s historical significance as well as the disruption that would take place to the city’s established mail system.

There is no mail delivery in Mendota; rather residents pick up their mail at the post office. Clusterboxes would have to be installed and maintained to provide mail delivery in town should the post office close.

The delay through May 15, 2012, is in response to a request by a group of U.S. senators, who want to seek a legislative solution to the USPS’s budget problems.

The USPS has also been asked to develop economic impact analyses of targeted locations by the May deadline, according to a report by Reuters.

After posting an $8.5 billion operating loss in 2010, the service has been considering closing about 10 percent of its offices, and identified  for possible closure.

USPS does not receive tax dollars to support its operations.

Mayor Brian Mielke said he was notified of the delay by Sen. Al Franken’s office early Tuesday.

“I feel terrific,” said Mielke. “It gives us more time to dig up the Humphrey stuff, if it exists.”

He’s referring to a recollection of some that Hubert H. Humphrey  once secured a promise from Congress that Mendota’s post office would never be closed.

Mendota resident Carl Robinette said he remembers that agreement, and sat on the Mendota Council at the time.

The city has enlisted the help of legislators to find any record of that promise. Whether it would be enough to sway the minds of a financially troubled institution remains to be seen. 

The USPS had initially planned to start closing retail locations in February.