If you live in Vermont’s state capital, you still cannot buy stamps or ship a package with the U.S. Postal Service.
Despite the agency’s promises of a fully-functional Montpelier post office “before the summer months,” and a lease on a large retail space that started more than four months ago, the temporary office that finally opened in late July is a wide, unstaffed, mostly empty room with a row of P.O. boxes on the far wall.
Thirteen months after floodwaters devastated the city’s federal building at 87 State St., postal customers in Montpelier still have to drive to surrounding towns to access any USPS retail services.
“It’s incredibly disappointing. Honestly, it’s pathetic,” said Ben Doyle, the chairman of the Montpelier Commission for Recovery and Resilience.
The commission is an independent body set up shortly after the July 2023 floods to lead city renewal projects. Recovering a working post office for Montpelier has been one of its main objectives. It has been a long, torturous saga, according to Doyle, that continues to this day.