Casper City Council Asks Delegation For West Side Post Office
Casper City Council will ask Wyoming's congressional delegation -- Sens. Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, and Rep. Liz Cheney -- to ask the U.S. Postal Service to consider building a post office on the city's west side.
Council voted 8-1 for the resolution after Paradise Valley resident Brian Clark collected scores of signatures on a petition.
Whether that effort and good intention gets any results is another matter.
Council member Jesse Morgan complimented the effort of Clark, who spoke at the March 20 council meeting.
Clark said far more people live on the west side than the Town of Mills, which has its own post office.
The west side had a postal station in Smith's grocery store on CY Avenue until the end of January, and that was the latest, and last, of four postal stations on the west side in the 40 years he's lived here, he added.
Morgan said the Mills post office is near the west side, and the U.S. Postal Service isn't building new brick-and-mortar post offices because of the competition from the digital world and other methods of sending mail and parcels.
And the buildings need to be profitable, he said. "They treat every post office like a business."
Morgan cast the only vote against the resolution.
Other council members liked the idea including Dallas Laird who represents Ward II on the west side.
But Laird said after the meeting that asking Congress for a new post office is possible but not probable.
"The reason I voted for it -- people in my area want it and I listen to them," he said. "What it does minimally, and maybe even the maximum use of it is, we're telling our congressional delegation, 'we would like you to go back and see if you can get us a post office.' That's what has to happen."
Where that will land in their priorities is unknown, Laird said. "I don't mind asking. If you don't ask, you'll never receive."
After Clark made his plea March 20, Denver U.S. Postal Service spokesman David Rupert said asking isn't going to help because the Postal Service isn't adding new buildings because of its online services, declining demand and the nearby Mills Post Office.
"Shopping habits are changing, and so by us adding a brick-and-mortar location isn't necessarily serving a community for the future, and it would be fiscally irresponsible," Rupert said.