BECKLEY, WV (LOOTPRESS) – Members of the Beckley community along with several city officials could be found on Tuesday at the site of the East Beckley Post Office, which has been shut down without sufficient explanation for over two years.
Participants in an informational picket could be observed earlier this week standing in the rain at the post office location, with some even wielding signs demanding answers with regard to the status of the facility.
Former Beckley City Council member Lee Leftwich was one of the minds behind the organization of the event, which was intended both to provide and to obtain information on the inactive post office location.
“This post office has been closed for about two years and the owner has been making repairs. We’re trying to get some answers as to why it’s not open – why some of the people with the postal service have not come in and certified it to be opened,” Leftwich told LOOTPRESS during the event, noting that many of the individuals who, in the past, relied on the services provided by the post office are of advanced age and have been forced to seek other avenues through which to obtain their mail.
“It’s a community that’s made-up of elderly senior citizens and I think the building has been there for at least 70-75 years, so it’s an icon. We’re hoping that we can get some answers as to why it’s not been able to get the “okay” for the facility to be open.”
Leftwich states that, during his time as a member of city council, he was able to prevent the closure of the building through the circulation of a petition but indicates that the situation has since changed. Years back they were going to close it when I was on city council. I circulated a petition and was able to save it, but this is a little bit of a different situation.”
Chris Black with the West Virginia Postal Workers Union was also on-hand for the informational event and shared some insight with LOOTPRESS regarding the proceedings.
“This is just supposed to be an informational picket. We’re just trying to get information out to the city or to the community here, so everybody knows what’s going on,” Black said. “We haven’t been able to get any answers from the postal service and we’re wondering why this post office is still shut down, why it’s still in what’s considered “suspended operations,”
Black also shared concerns of similar instances with regard to post offices throughout the region, including those in the Ghent and Flat To areas.
“That seems to be what the Postal Service does to kind of hide behind a few things. Just in this general area right now we have the Flat Top Post Office – they have suspended operations; they haven’t officially closed it yet. The Ghent Post Office – the landlord sold the property. It wasn’t owned by the postal service, so we lost the lease. They suspended operations there and have not looked for another location. We’ve given them different locations there in the community even if they wanted to move,” he said. “There’s been no communication from the top down to local management on why we don’t have an East Beckley Post Office anymore.”
Several city officials are reported to have made their way out to the event, including Beckley Mayor Ryan Neal, who took time to discuss the situation with LOOTPRESS on Tuesday.
“These guys invited me to this rally to come out and get an informational picket on what’s going on at this post office that was closed down over two years ago. It was supposed to be temporarily until the building was fixed up, but it’s been 2-plus years. So, we’re just trying to get out here today and say ‘hey listen, people in this community want this post office, need this post office back open and we’re out here today just trying to do everything we can to get it back open,” said Mayor Neal, who also made note of the elderly population in the area who made use of the East Beckley Post Office prior to its closing.
“A lot of elderly live in this area, and who uses the post office? It’s not 20-to-25-year-olds. It’s elderly people that are still paying their bills through mail; they’re sending out birthday cards to their grandkids and things like that. So, it seems to me, from a business aspect, it’d make a lot of sense to open this thing back up,” he continued, praising the efforts of the workers who took time to participate in the event.
“Kudos to the guys at the post office over off Industrial Drive. They took time out of their day to come in to get the word out, because obviously they hear over there from of people in this community, ‘hey, when’s our post office going to be opened back up?’ So good for these guys, Chris and Jerry and some of the other people that work over at that post office who took time off today and come out and try to get this thing resolved.”
