Post office move rattles Scottsville

Jeremy Borden / Charlottesville Daily Progress
Published: January 21, 2008

The town of Scottsville's post office moved out of the historic downtown earlier this month - a move that doesn't sit well with residents who have been coming and going from the small-town hub since the 1960s.

Kit Decker, a downtown resident, said the post office served as a "social and economic hub" for the small town. He and others said residents are most rankled by a promise for clustered mailboxes in lieu of the post office. The promised boxes, they say, have not yet arrived, and a downtown drop box has also been taken away.

The post office had been planning its move to Village Square Shopping Center - about a mile from town - for years. Officials have cited a need to expand, and the old building was unsuitable for future needs, residents said.

"It's a [major] change for me and I know it is for others as well," said Robert Spencer, a 72-year-old former mayor who lives near where the post office used to be.

Scottsville's postmaster couldn't be reached Monday.

As the town attempts to woo businesses and foster a better environment for tourists - mainly through a large streetscape beautification project - the post office's relocation might be a blow to that effort, residents said.

Some Scottsville residents don't get mail delivered to their homes and can't send it either. Many pay for post office boxes and have to go to the post office to send any kind of mail, residents said. The office's relocation makes it impossible to walk there, especially for senior citizens, they said.

Town Mayor R. Stephen Phipps said he lobbied U.S. Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., R-Rocky Mount, and federal post office officials to deliver mail to residents downtown. About half the residents in Scottsville receive mail and half do not, he said. Post office officials didn't want to pay for delivery on rural roads, Phipps said.

Phipps said the post office is conducting a survey to figure out how many people will use the cluster boxes and where to put them.

But residents said that because officials have been planning the post office move for years, the work should have been done much earlier.

"I'm sure they'll resolve it," said Maria Morrell, Decker's wife. "But it just seems like such poor planning, especially since we've known it's coming for such a long time."