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The Imperial Usps

When it's time to build a new post office, towns often have little input.

Westminster, Vermont, is a picturesque community of 3,200 people with a post office that serves as an anchor in a small historic village within the town. Although quaint, the 800-square-foot post office is bursting at the seams, and town leaders and postal officials agree that a larger facility is needed.

But just how much larger has become a point of contention. Townspeople were shocked to hear that the postal service had proposed a facility more than four times the size of the current one, including a loading dock and 33 parking spaces. In their view, it would be completely out of character in the oldest town in Vermont, which has buildings dating back to the early 1800s. "We want the post office to match in size and design the character of the buildings already here," says Mayor Glenn Smith. "Our question is why they needed to quadruple the size."

Smith is not the only local official scratching his head over post office decisions or finding it tough to battle an institution that is trying to remake itself as an entrepreneurial enterprise.

Postal officials say that first consideration is given to existing facilities, but frequently a new building is planned for locations far removed from downtown business districts. Or the post office offers proposals that are inappropriate in size and scale for a small downtown, says Emily Wadhams, Vermont's historic preservation officer. "The standard model is more appropriate for a shopping-center location than the heart of a downtown."

In response to a letter from U.S. Senator James Jeffords, who with the rest of the Vermont congressional delegation wrote to the USPS about its "disregard for the needs and desires of the communities it serves," postal official Deborah Willhite said, "We cannot be all things to all people. Our role in the revitalization of the nation's cities and towns must be limited to incidental participant."

Communities believe otherwise. They don't want post offices contributing to sprawl by moving to the middle of nowhere, Wadhams says. And they want the postal service to recognize the important community role that post offices play and the damage that occurs when they move out. To that end, Jeffords sponsored a bill in the last session that would set stricter requirements for relocating a post office. He is expected to reintroduce it this session.

In the meantime, each town is on its own. York, South Carolina, tried negotiating with the postal service to save its downtown post office. "It was very difficult to work with them," says City Manager Trey Eubanks. "We did everything we could to keep them downtown." But to no avail. The facility was moved from an historic building to a 20,000- square-foot office across from a Super Wal-Mart.

Some communities have better luck, but it almost always involves an extended battle. Blackshear, Georgia, population 4,000, got a scare last spring when the downtown post office announced it wanted to move to a spot on heavily traveled U.S. 84. More than 1,300 people signed a petition opposing the move. There were a lot of meetings during a process that lasted more than a year. "It was pretty clear throughout they wanted to go to 84," says Mayor Brooks Hampton.

Blackshear, however, managed to secure a compromise. The post office split its operations, setting up a routing facility on U.S. 84 and promising to leave the retail operation downtown.

A lot of municipalities would be satisfied with that sort of arrangement but many local officials feel intimidated by the whole process. "It's the federal government coming in and putting a plan on the table in front of a five-member board of selectmen and all the weight that comes with that," says Karen Horn, of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns.

Westminster thinks it has gotten the postal service to agree to 12 parking spaces, down from 33, but other problems remain, such as growth assumptions the postal service is using to choose the size of the new facility.

Meanwhile, the Vermont municipal league plans to write a guide detailing what towns should look for and how they should negotiate when the post office comes in with proposals. "We found if you don't make a fuss," Horn says, "you're going to get the post office standard design plunked down in town with no relation to where the town would like to see it."

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