Post office construction woes stir political pressure from Emerson

Unforeseen structural problems with the post office renovation on Frederick Street prompted stern remarks from U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson Thursday.

Emerson said the postal service should establish a stand-alone retail facility on Cape Girardeau's west side rather than waste money to fix up the old facility in the downtown area.

Postal officials acknowledged that they've run into more structural problems at the Frederick Street property, a building the post office once leased. It won't reopen this year.

The postal service has so far spent about $800,000 to buy the Frederick Street building and repair the roof.

Postal officials in Cape Girardeau and Kansas City said they don't know how much more money will be spent to fix up the building.

Work has been underway to replace the roof since July at a cost of about $300,000.

But now the contractor has found that the roof supports also need to be replaced.

As late as early October, postal service spokesman Richard Watkins said the post office likely would reopen by mid-November. But that won't happen now, he said Thursday from his Kansas City regional office.

Watkins said he doesn't know how much the added repairs will cost or how much more money will have to be spent to replace electrical wiring and interior lights.

Postal officials don't plan to spend $470,000 to completely renovate the lobby and customer-service space. Watkins said the agency now hopes to "spruce it up."

Such cosmetic changes will cost less than $100,000, he said. But Watkins said there's no definitive cost figure yet.

Even with the growing repair bill, Watkins said the postal service intends to reopen the Frederick Street post office.

For now, Cape Girardeau will continue to operate a temporary retail post office from a Christine Street storefront as its done since March 2004. The Christine Street facility would close when the Frederick Street post office reopens.

Within the next two weeks, the postal service plans to open a substation at the Bi-State convenience store at 920 N. Kingshighway. The postal service will pay $37,000 annually to the retailer to operate the substation.

Postal service officials said that gives Cape Girardeau two postal facilities, but Emerson said the substation is a poor substitute for a stand-alone retail post office.

"It is not a suitable answer," she said. "It is totally unworkable."

Cape Girardeau postmaster Mike Keefe said the substation will provide postal customers a second site for buying stamps and mailing letters.

Emerson, who has been battling regional postal officials in Kansas City and Denver for more than a year over the issue, appealed to the nation's postmaster general in Washington for help last month.

The appeal came in an Oct. 25 letter to postmaster general John Potter. Cape Girardeau has received "substandard service from USPS, particularly when compared to similar-sized cities in our region," Emerson wrote.

She wants postal officials to respond by the end of the month. If not, Emerson said she'll push harder for Postal Service officials in Washington to intervene.

"We ought to at least be able to get one nice post office," Emerson said from her Capitol Hill office.

Paducah, Ky., a city with a smaller population than Cape Girardeau, has three stand-alone retail post offices, she said.

According to the Census Bureau, Paducah had a population of 25,545 in 2004. Cape Girardeau's population stood at 35,993, Emerson said.

Emerson recently made her case to Sylvester Black, vice president of postal service operations at the regional office in Denver, Colo.

In an Oct. 28 letter to Black, Emerson expressed disappointment at the postal service's decision to purchase the old Frederick Street post office rather than look to establish a more "user-friendly" retail office in a better location.

"Our disappointment increased when we learned that the USPS answer to our request for a stand-alone location was a small retail desk in the back of a gas station," wrote Emerson.

She's found it hard to deal with postal service bureaucracy. "There is just no follow-through," she said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123