SPANISH FORT – The city of Spanish Fort is moving forward with its appeal of a US Postal Service decision to close the community’s post office, but officials said they are not optimistic about the municipality’s chances.
At the City Council work session Monday, May 3, Mayor Mike McMillan said Spanish Fort must continue its effort.
“We’re continuing the fight,” McMillan said. “I think it’s an uphill battle, but this council thought this was the best decision for our citizens to do everything we can to move this to a positive ending for us. Am I optimistic? I’ll tell you I’m not, but we’re still going to fight the fight.”
The Postal Service closed the Spanish Fort Post Office on US 90 in January. At the time, Postal Service officials said the contract to operate the facility had expired and no new contract was selected.
David Conner, city attorney, said the Postal Service Regulatory Commission filed a notice to dismiss Spanish Fort’s appeal of the closing. He said lawyers for the city filed a response to the motion, which is now being reviewed in federal court in Washington, D.C.
Conner said the position of the Postal Regulatory Commission is that the appeals process does not apply to post offices operated by outside contractors, such as Spanish Fort’s facility.
Another issue is the question of the Spanish Fort facility being a “sole source” post office. Post offices can be closed if residents have another postal location close by. The nearest post office to Spanish Fort is in Daphne.
City officials said in earlier meetings that members of a community of 10,000 people should not have to drive to a neighboring city for postal services.
“The PRC says we will however review the determination if it’s a sole source post office, but that is a factual decision based on distances between post offices, types of services they provide, but the PRC routinely makes those decisions based only on one side of information provided by the postal service,” Conner said.
Conner also said the appeal process would be difficult.
“It’s an uphill battle, but it’s one that you all have undertaken and put the good fight and we’ll continue to move as we can,” he told council members.
