It’s been 61 years since Harper Lee celebrated the opening of Spanish Fort’s new post office and mingled with visitors.

The hoopla occurred in 1961, a little more than a year after her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird” was released. Steve Huktins, founder of the website, “Save the Post Office,” recalled Lee’s visit to Spanish Fort in a piece he did in 2020 that examined the city’s push to keep its post office open.

Related content:

But the historical link, and the modern realities of the U.S. Postal Service, could not prevent the inevitable. By January 2021, the Eastern Shore city’s lone post office closed, and no options have since surfaced to have another one reopened.

The lack of a post office has left Spanish Fort city officials and federal lawmakers perplexed, upset, and frustrated.

City officials argue they should have some sort of post office facility since it has a population over 10,500 residents and is experiencing some of the highest growth of any city in Alabama over the past 10 years. According to Census figures, Spanish Fort’s population grew 48% between 2010-2020. From 2020-2021, the city ranked seventh in the state for year-to-year growth.

”I’d say it’s rare for a city of 10,000 not to have a post office,” said Hutkins, a retired professor at the Gallatin School of New York University and a leading advocate for the U.S. Post Office.

Said Spanish Fort Mayor Mike McMillan, “It’s crazy and makes no sense. It’s very frustrating. I feel like my hands are tied.”

No service

Indeed, it’s an uphill battle for Spanish Fort to get a physical U.S. postal presence within the city.

Debra Jean Fetterly, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), told AL.com this week that there are no plans “to offer retail or Post Office Box service” within the city limits. She said that postal delivery service continues in Spanish Fort.

Spanish Fort city officials, however, are pushing to get some sort of resolution. The city’s sole post office was located within a strip mall along U.S. 98, but it has been closed for nearly two years after the USPS opted to no longer have it operate. The 700 occupied P.O. boxes were then transferred to the Daphne Post Office. The Spanish Fort post office has since been repurposed into a cigar shop.

The city, in late 2020 and early 2021, attempted to prevent the closure but to not avail.

An appeal before the Postal Regulatory Commission attempted to prevent the closure, but the group ruled in February 2021, that it lacked jurisdiction in the case because the Spanish Fort post office was contractor-operated, and not a USPS owned and operated retail facility.

Spanish Fort officials have since advocated for a permanent post office that is staffed by union workers. The USPS is not interested, and some Spanish Fort officials are miffed over some of the postal service’s rationale for not establishing a permanent facility within the city.

Among them is the USPS’ stance that the Daphne Post Office is a short drive to Spanish Fort.

Fetterly said that Spanish Fort customers can conduct retail transactions in Daphne, which she has classified as “five miles from Spanish Fort.”

McMillan said the USPS refuses to take into account the traffic congestion prominent throughout the high-growth Eastern Shore area. He said the location of newer neighborhoods north of the city make the commute to Daphne that much longer.

”Our biggest neighborhoods are not in the city,” McMillan said. “You take the surrounding areas serviced by this post office, and you can double that number (in mileage to the Daphne Post Office).”

Rising complaints

Within the past year, the complaints have rolled in, and U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl’s office is compiling them.

Carl, R-Mobile, who is pushing for USPS to establish a permanent post office in Spanish Fort, he said he has fielded “well over 300 complaints” in the past few months from residents who are dissatisfied with the postal service.

“We have repeatedly pushed the USPS to fix this problem, and we will continue to do all we can to get Spanish Fort the postal service it needs,” said Carl. His office is asking residents to continue submitting service concerns to his office at [email protected] or directly to the USPS at 1-800-ASK-USPS or online at https://www.usps.com.

McMillan said the latest round of complaints from residents comes from a lack of timely mailing of public notices for important meetings. The most egregious example, he said, had to do with public notices about a city planning commission meeting arriving after the meeting had been completed.

”We’ve had issues with getting them (to residents) in a timely manner or getting there at all,” McMillan said. “It’s critical for a city to have that service in a timely manner.”

Postal problems

What’s preventing Spanish Fort from having a post office?

Some of the issues for the closure include the following:

Contract postal units

The former Spanish Fort post office was a “contract” postal unit, which meant it was not staffed nor was it operated by the U.S. Postal Service.

The USPS opted not to renew extend the contract that expired on January 15, 2021, which is part of a trend for the USPS. According to the USPS’ fiscal year 2021 annual compliance determination report – released on March 29 – the number of contract postal units declined from 2,022 in fiscal year 2019 to 1,820 last year in fiscal year 2021. That’s a 202 drop in contract postal units in two years. The USPS operates on a fiscal year that runs from October 1 to September 30.

Comparably, the number of retail sites managed directly by the USPS and staffed by USPS employees barely declined between fiscal year 2019-2021. The USPS operates around 31,300 retail post offices nationwide.

Labor issue

McMillan said the reason Spanish Fort lost its postal service is related to a collective bargaining restriction that prohibits contract postal units operating P.O. boxes.

Former U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, in 2020, said he believed the union’s agreement should have pushed the postal service to open a full-service facility in Spanish Fort staffed with union workers.

Said McMillan, “My comment is we should make this a union shop. I don’t care. We need a post office. The postal service didn’t want to do that and they moved it Daphne.”

Hutkins, in his 2020 report on Spanish Fort, said he did not believe there was any issues with collective bargaining agreements that would have prevented a contract unit post office to operate. He said that details about the issue would have been released had the Postal Regulatory Commission conducted a hearing into Spanish Fort’s case, but that did not occur.

Two goals

McMillan said that city officials believe there are two things they need to show the USPS to get a post office opened within the city: Prove that there is a growth within the community, which is happening. And the second is to prove a lack of service.

”That’s the point of the survey,” said McMillan, referring to Carl’s efforts to obtain complaints from residents. “Whether it’s lost mail or mail not getting there or it is delay-mailed or whatever it is, they need to let Congressman Carl’s office know that they can take (their concerns) to the postal service and let them know we need a post office in Spanish Fort.”