BUCKHANNON – The City of Buckhannon’s Consolidated Public Works Board plans to contact the Buckhannon Post Office and offer the city’s services to make the post office more accessible.
The board discussed and agreed to send a letter to the USPS facility located on Spring Street to formulate a plan to make the facility more handicapped-accessible.
“I went to the post office two days ago, and I met with the postmaster, and it just so happened, she was meeting with a contractor who was planning on doing some work in the front of the building,” city councilman and Consolidated Board member CJ Rylands said. “The post office does not own that building – someone else does – so if a formal entity like the municipality sends a request in, the suggestion might carry a lot more weight, and we can get something done.”
Director of Public Works Jerry Arnold said the ultimate goal would be to provide better access to the front of the building.
“The bottom line is, we would be willing to help them achieve better pedestrian access to the front of their building and we did that when we did that up on the top side – when we did the sidewalk for the ramps there to the alley,” Arnold said. “We put a ramp to the post office, off the sidewalk, and that’s not our right-of-way.”
Arnold said the crosswalk in front of the post office has always been there, but it is not an Americans with Disabilities, or ADA-compliant method of getting to the post office.
“The crosswalk is in front of the post office, and it’s always been there, but that is not the ADA-compliant way to get there and long story short, in the grand scheme of the Spring Street project, what needs to happen is, the crosswalk needs to come up the street to where the ADA ramp is [on the parking lot side of the post office],” Arnold said.
“The island where the mailbox is also needs to be redesigned because the handicapped space is right there on that corner; it needs to be redesigned with a ramp to get to that,” he added, referring to the drive-by mailbox across the street from the post office in the Fox’s Pizza parking lot.
Arnold said a ramp cannot be placed right in front of the building due the elevation.
“Currently, the most up-to-date ADA access to the Buckhannon Post Office is the ramp we put in off the alley, because that attempt was made years ago. Down on the parking lot would not comply now with ADA standards,” Arnold said. “That being said, the letter kind of puts out there [that we are willing] to help in any way to facilitate making pedestrian access better, and we would ask for them to allow the flowerbed to go away and let us continue to make our sidewalks or the sidewalk on that side, continuous all the way to Madison Street.”
The board agreed with sending the letter to the post office.
“I think it’s reasonably written as requested and we’re not mandating anything,” Rylands said. “I would think they would agree with what we’re trying to accomplish, making it easier for handicapped, disabled folks to access the post office.”
Before adjourning, the Consolidated Board also:
- Approved an event request for the annual Relay for Life Celebration, slated to take place Saturday, Aug. 14, 2021 at Jawbone Park.
- Approved an event request for a Pentecost Gospel Sing Sunday, June 6, 2021 at Jawbone Park.
- Approved an event request for an Upshur County Right to Life Rally Saturday, June 26, 2021 at Jawbone Park.
- Approved signage/naming of the Memorial Wall at the Buckhannon Dog Park to read “Honor and Memorial Wall” with City of Buckhannon’s seal on the display.
- Approved a bid from Everson-Carr Farms LLC to weed eat/trim around all flat markers twice in 2021 mowing season Spring and Fall) for $11,400.
- Tabled a UCDA Request for the City of Buckhannon to mow the area located at the former site of Latham House on Madison Street temporarily due to an insurance-related matter.
