September 29, 2015: Downtown Dolliver, in the middle of a weekday. The post office is the white-and-blue building on the right.
The post office in tiny Dolliver closes today, according to a Des Moines Register story citing a USPS press release. The town, population 66, is three miles south of the Minnesota border in Emmet County. The story does not say the post office is permanently closed, but the landlord “has not complied with requests to address concerns,” the press release says.
I had worries about the USPS’ plan to close dozens of post offices across Iowa, but this situation gives me pause. How effective or efficient is it, really, to have an open facility in a place where I felt like the only soul in town when I passed through? The building itself has empty lots on either side, and they aren’t the only ones.
I don’t think I can fault the USPS too much for threatening to close a post office if the owner of its building won’t keep up with repairs. This is not an uncommon thing, as it’s happened in Hillsboro and Scranton this year. The question is, what power does a community have to demand a private owner maintain a facility for a post office?
If the USPS made a blanket policy that it would permanently close post offices in buildings it considered unsafe, it could be beneficial in that the more important post offices would get needed repairs while lesser-used ones would be lost through attrition.