Akron Mayor Chris Rollins talks with WBRC 6 News about the post office outside the Akron town office
Akron Mayor Chris Rollins has collected more than a hundred signatures on a petition asking the U.S. Postal Service to keep the Akron post office open, WBRC 6 News reported Oct. 2, and U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell has urged the Postal Service to do the same.
The Postal Service will move the Akron office’s business to the Moundville post office after Saturday, Oct. 31, because the lease on the Akron building was not renewed, a Postal Service spokesperson for the Alabama-Mississippi District told WBRC Sept. 29.
“The closure of the Akron Post Office would be a terrible loss for West Alabama. I stand with the Akron community and urge the U.S. Postal Service to keep this vital facility open for those who rely on it!” Sewell wrote Oct. 2 on her Facebook page. The Town of Akron shared her post within the hour.”It’s a real detriment to the town to close the post office. We have 93-year-old people, a lady who drives up here on a monthly basis to pay her bills,” Rollins told WBRC.
The petition, 10 pages of signatures so far, asks the Postal Service to reconsider. The town is asking people to stop by Akron Town Hall and sign it, the town said in a Sept. 30 post.
The Akron office will stay open for normal operations through Oct. 31. After that, customers can do business at the Moundville post office, and Akron post office box holders can pick up their mail there with proper identification.
“To assist customers during this transition, information will be posted in the public area of the Akron Post Office. The Postal Service is continuing to seek a suitable resolution for this matter,” the spokesperson told WBRC.
The building is owned by 197 Akron LLC, WBRC reported Sept. 29. Brian De Rousseau, a spokesman for the owners, told WBRC the lease expired in August. The Postal Service had been paying $1,000 a month, and De Rousseau proposed a $200 increase with the new lease, WBRC reported Oct. 2. He said the Postal Service told him its decision was a combination of issues but did not say what they were.
In a statement to WBRC, the company said property taxes, insurance, maintenance and other operating costs have risen substantially, but that it is willing to consider a meaningful reduction in the proposed rent or other reasonable lease changes if doing so could make it financially feasible for the Postal Service to stay.
The Akron postmaster told WBRC she could not talk about the matter.
The Postal Service leases nearly 23,000 of its roughly 31,000 properties nationwide from private owners, at a cost of more than $1 billion a year, according to a report dated Sept. 28 from the Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General.
