APWU Contributes to Fight To Save Historic Post Offices

The APWU will make a $15,000 donation to the National Post Office Collaborate, an organization dedicated to fighting the sale of historic post offices, APWU President Cliff Guffey has announced. The Collaborate, which grew out of the fight to save the Berkeley CA post office, plans to mount legal challenges to the sale of hundreds of historic post offices across the nation.

“Preventing the sale of historic post offices is part of our struggle,” Guffey said. “It coincides with our efforts to stop the dismantling of the USPS and to prevent consolidations, excessing, and reductions in service standards.”

The National Post Office Collaborate won its first court victory on Sept. 26, when it persuaded U.S. District Judge Vanessa Bryant to grant a Temporary Restraining Order against the sale of the Stamford CT post office to the Capelli Organization. The New York-based real estate developer plans to build apartments on the site.

One month later, on Oct. 28, the group won a second legal victory, when U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton issued a preliminary injunction against the sale, ruling that the USPS failed to conduct an environmental review of its impact, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

“There is a strong public interest in ensuring that USPS complies with its NEPA obligations here and in any future sales of its other properties,” the judge wrote.

“Yesterday’s decision could have far-reaching impacts,” according to the Save the Post Office website. “It’s not clear at this point if the ruling will become a precedent, but as the case moves forward, it may put more pressure on the Postal Service to conduct environmental impact reviews when it wants to sell a historic post office.” This could result in more opportunities for public input into decisions over sales, more attention to what will happen to the buildings after they are sold, more transparency in the process, and more obstacles for the Postal Service to overcome before it sells a historic property, the website said.

Larger Fight

The challenge to the Stamford sale is part of a much larger fight, says Jacquelyn McCormick, executive director of the Collaborate. The group is trying to protect public ownership of historic post offices and the art they contain. “They are assets of the people of the United States,” McCormick told the Stamford Advocate.

The USPS holds the largest collection of New Deal-era art in the nation. Many have murals painted on the walls, around windows and over doors. “There is no guarantee these buildings will remain part of the public domain, yet taxpayers paid for them and their art,” the Collaborate’s website points out.

“The legacy that was given to us, entrusted in our Constitution, is being dismantled a little bit at a time,” McCormick said at a Day of Action to Save the Post Office in the Bronx NY in September. The USPS has been trying to sell the Bronx post office, which houses 13 giant paintings by New Deal artist Ben Shahn and his wife, Bernarda Bryson Shahn, for more than a year.

“The architecture, the buildings, the art that’s in our post office buildings is owned by the people of the United States. Our tax dollars paid for these buildings. The work of our parents and our grandparents during the Great Depression put the art in those buildings,” McCormick said.

The Collaborate will work with local partners to fight the sale of historic post offices, she said. The group is seeking additional donations to help defray costs.