A top U.S. Postal Board official weighed in on site selection — prompted by an influential Rapp resident who was former chairman of the postal service governing body
‘It feels like a slap in the face to the residents of Washington and Rappahannock County’
The historic town of Washington Post Office barely serves 300 customers per day, yet one of the top U.S. Postal Service officials in the United States weighed in on its future location that now apparently will take it out of the county seat for the first time in 215 years.
Julie Moore, who until July 2018 was the longtime Secretary of the United States Postal Service Board of Governors, wrote Dec. 20, 2017 to USPS site selection specialist Rick Hancock that she received word from James C. Miller III, a former U.S. Postal Board Chairman and resident of Rappahannock County, that a “majority of the community” preferred that the post office be moved “outside the town limits.”
Despite Moore’s assertion, no survey was ever conducted by the U.S. Postal Service, the Washington Town Council, or Rappahannock County government to determine citizen preferences for a future post office site. Miller acknowledged in a telephone interview Tuesday that the secretary’s statement was based on his own informal survey of bank customers and employees.
“It feels like a slap in the face to the residents of Washington and Rappahannock County when someone with the Postal Service in Washington, D.C., makes a decision and disregards the wishes of the local population,” Washington Mayor Fred Catlin said this week about Secretary Moore’s involvement in the site selection process.