Spanish Fort and Daphne continue to grow at a rapid rate on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay, where new subdivisions continue popping up and pressures exist to build new schools and roads.

And a post office.

Since January 2021, Spanish Fort has been without a post office, requiring residents to travel along busy and oft-congested U.S. 98 to get to nearby Daphne and the nearest post office.

Related content:

City officials hope the U.S. Postal Service will reconsider. They will meet on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., with one of the Postal Service’s Inspector Generals and U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl to discuss Spanish Fort’s plight.

For Spanish Fort Mayor Mike McMillan, the goal remains the same: Get a post office built or opened to serve a growing city of 10,656 residents.

“This is a positive step to finally get in front of someone,” said McMillan about Tuesday’s meeting. “We’re finally reaching a point where they will at least listen to us about putting one back in.”

McMillan said almost everything is on the table. He said the city is willing to consider options of building a post office on city-owned land or building a post office and leasing it back to the U.S. Postal Service. Another option could include leasing an existing city building to the postal service.

“There are a lot of options,” he said.

A statement from the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General confirms the meeting with Carl’s office to include a discussion about the oversight role of the agency, and a recent Office of Inspector General audits and investigations “that may be of interest to the Congressman.”

“We also understand the closure of the Spanish Fort contract postal unit is a topic of concern and expect to hear more about this issue at the meeting,” according to the statement. “The (Office of Inspector General) does not play a role in determining the placement of post offices or facilities, but we have conducted audits on the Postal Service’s process for closing and relocating facilities in the past.”

Carl’s, in a statement, said they are looking forward to the meeting “as we continue doing all we can to push the USPS to restore adequate postal service for the City of Spanish Fort.”

The statement from Carl to AL.com, said the lack of a Spanish Fort post office has been an issue he has been working on since first taking office in January 2021, the same month in which the city’s lone post office – located in a strip mall along U.S. 98 – closed.

“I know how important good postal service is for the residents and business owners in this fast-growing community,” said Carl, R-Mobile. “I have heard concerns from several hundred residents of Spanish Fort, and I encourage folks to continue submitting their service concerns to my office.”

He said people can contact him via email at [email protected] and directly to the U.S. Postal Service at 1-800-ASK-USPS or online at https://www.usps.com.

McMillan said he hopes the meeting illustrates to the postal service the need to place a post office in Spanish Fort.

“Plain and simple, the sheer numbers are overwhelming for it,” he said.

Indeed, Spanish Fort continues to grow at a rapid clip and is raising the need for a post office, the mayor said.

The city experienced some of the highest growth of any city in Alabama from 2010-2020 and has continued its growth during the early part of this decade.

According to Census figures, Spanish Fort’s population grew 48% during the last decade, and the growth has continued at nearly 6% since the 2020 Census.

McMillan said he suspects close to 20,000 patrons who once used the Spanish Fort post office are now going to the Daphne post office. He said that Daphne, which grew by 27% from 2010 to 2020, is also experiencing rapid growth. Daphne, which is Baldwin County’s largest city, has grown by 8% since the 2020 Census, and has close to 30,000 residents.

“It’s 20,000 patrons put into a crowded post office in a city growing as much as we are,” said McMillan of his city’s residents going to Daphne.

It has been an uphill battle for Spanish Fort to get a physical postal presence within the city. While postal delivery continues, the city’s old post office has since been repurposed into a cigar shop. The 700 occupied P.O. boxes inside the Spanish Fort facility were transferred to Daphne.

Spanish Fort, in late 2020 and early 2021, attempted to prevent the closure but were not successful. An appeal before the Postal Regulatory Commission also attempted to prevent closure. But a ruling in February 2021, indicated 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 staffed by union workers. But the USPS has not granted that, leaving Spanish Fort officials frustrated over the process and the postal service’s rationale for not establishing a permanent facility.

The closure was part of a trend by the USPS to reduce the number of contract post units throughout the country, from 2,200 in fiscal year 2019 to 1,820 in fiscal year 2021, or a drop of 202 contract postal units in two years. The USPS operates a fiscal year from October 1 to September 30.

Retail offices managed directly by the USPS and staffed by USPS employees have also declined, albeit at a much lower clip. The USPS operates around 31,300 retail post offices nationwide.

The USPS, among other things, said that the Daphne Post Office is a short drive to Spanish Fort – a postal service spokesperson classified it as a “five-mile” drive to Spanish Fort.

McMillan, last year, argued that the USPS refused to take into account the traffic congestion prominent throughout the high-growth Eastern Shore area. He said the location of new neighborhoods north of the city also makes the commute to Daphne much longer.

Along the way, complaints have rolled into the City Hall and Carl’s office. Carl, late last year, said that his office fielded “well over 300 complaints” from residents dissatisfied with the postal service.

McMillan also said he was worried over the lack of timely mailing of public notices about important meetings. He said last fall that there had been times in which public notices about a city planning commission meeting would arrive to residents after the meeting had concluded.

Steve Hutkins, a retired professor at the Gallatin School of New York University and a leading advocate for the U.S. Post Office and founder of the website, “Save the Post Office,” said he believes Spanish Fort needs a post office, and he is glad the “fight for a Spanish Fort post office continues.”

“If the city of Spanish Fort is willing to help find space in a city building or even build a new post office, that could be persuasive, especially if the idea is supported by elected officials like Carl,” said Hutkins. “A city the size of Spanish Fort definitely needs and deserves its own post office.”