U.S. Rep. Jared Golden is demanding answers about why a Maine town’s post office remains closed after three years.
In a letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy dated May 30, Golden said that May marked three years since the West Paris post office closed. Since then, he said that the Postal Service has lacked transparency and clear communication about when it will reopen.
That followed letters the 2nd Congressional District Democrat sent in October 2022 and September 2023 requesting information about the fate of the West Paris post office.
The post office there closed in May 2021 after the lease at its longtime location wasn’t renewed, according to CBS affiliate WGME.
That closure has meant West Paris residents must travel several miles to the post office in South Paris to access the agency’s services, and some have complained about mail delays.
“Every town needs their post office, it’s an important part of democracy,” West Paris resident Brenda Gould told WGME last year. “They’ve been good in taking over what they can, but it’s not the same as having a post office right down the street.”
In his letter, Golden noted that the last update from the Postal Service, in July 2023, suggested it was “nearing completion” of negotiations for a new facility, which would be “fully operational” within 10 months. But that time has come and gone with no clarity about when full postal services will return to West Paris, according to Golden.
“While I understand the USPS cannot provide information relating to ongoing negotiations [over the facility’s lease], the lack of transparency and unwillingness to provide information to relay to my constituents who rely on the Postal Service every day is deeply concerning,” Golden wrote in the letter. “That is why I am once again asking for an honest and accurate estimated timeline for the reopening of the West Paris post office.”
He added that if plans for reopening have changed, then West Paris residents “deserve to know that too.”
Scott Adams, the president of the American Postal Workers Union Local 458, said in a Tuesday statement that the Postal Service under DeJoy has “lost focus.”
“This is clearly evident in the disparity between how slowly it takes to reopen rural post offices to how rapidly they move forward to consolidate large processing facilities across the country,” he said.
In Etna, the post office reopened in January after “structural issues” forced its closure in 2021. The slow reopening drew criticism from Golden given the construction of a new facility was completed in September 2022.
More recently, the Postal Service postponed plans to move outgoing mail processing from its Eastern Maine Distribution Center in Hampden to the Southern Maine Distribution Center in Scarborough. The Hampden facility would have been converted into a local processing center.
A New England spokesperson for the Postal Service declined to comment.
