The historic Ukiah Post Office built in 1936 by the Work Projects Administration
Why We Can Win
The Ukiah post office has been the heart of downtown for 74 years. On Feb. 23, the United States Postal Service told the city that it wants to abandon this beautiful building and move all services to the annex on Orchard Avenue.
This proposal comes from the USPS district, which has to hear public comment at a meeting, respond to it, and justify the decision to higher management. Any decision can be appealed.
Many towns have been successful in defending their post offices. If the Ukiah community stands together, we can prevent this terrible blow to the city because:
It’s bad business. USPS intends to spend at least $360,000 to remodel the annex as a replacement, instead of keeping the downtown post office in good repair. Without the convenient downtown location, USPS will lose business and it hasn’t made a coherent explanation of why there would be any operational savings.
They’re hiding documents. USPS refuses to release its closure study and survey of the downtown building, while it claims a preposterous cost to make repairs to it.
It’s a historic building. USPS is required to protect historic resources, not needlessly abandon them and try to sell them off.
JOIN THE FIGHT. Let us know at Save@UkiahPostOffice.com if you would like to be notified of upcoming meetings, including the PUBLIC FORUM to be held soon where USPS officials will hear your comments.
To give your feedback TODAY, write Rosemarie Fernandez, District Manager, USPS, 1300 Evans Avenue, San Francisco CA 94124 or call her at 415-550-5001. [copy your letter to Patrick Donahoe, Postmaster General, 475 L'Enfant Plaza SW, Washington, D.C. 20590]
www.UkiahPostOffice.com – Facebook: Save The Ukiah Post Office 280 N. Oak St., Ukiah
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The Decater Family
Tom Palley
Gene Logsdon
The artist (Ben Cunningham) who painted the mural in the Ukiah Post Office is a significant American artist. And his work is under attack by the US Postal Service. I found this in Googling around this evening:
After the work on the Coit Tower was completed, Cunningham became assistant art director for the Northern California Federal Art Project. He executed several other murals himself, including the ceiling for the Reno post office in 1937, painted in oil. To his dismay, it was obliterated shortly afterward. According to several accounts, the old retiring postmaster simply had it painted over, and there was no outcry by civic groups or any other move to save it. “He had stripped Nevada of a great piece of art, the most beautiful ceiling I ever saw,” lamented Richard Guy Walton, a local painter who actually saw the mural.5 In effect, a lone postal official in the hinterland was able to implement the destruction of a work of art that happened to displease him.
Let’s not let another postal official hide Ben Cunningham’s work!!!
save OUR post office!