Winchester Post Office in jeopardy of closing doors

By Ryne Turke on May 17, 2016 at 1:01pm

An ongoing lease battle could result in the brief closure of a Scott County Post Office.

Winchester Mayor Rex McIntyre informed WLDS-WEAI News that letters went out this week to village residents stating the post office would cease service on Friday.

McIntyre says lease renewal negotiations between the postal service and Marty Wittee, the owner of the post office building in Winchester, have not been successful up to this point.

“We are trying to negotiate with postal employees, the higher ups and district managers. We are in contact with them, trying to get this thing resolved. We told them how important it is to keep our postal service here,” says McIntyre.

The issue even stirred some action last night from Winchester officials.

“Our City Council met last night to discuss this issue. Our City Attorney John Coonrod is diligently working on getting this thing stopped. I’m pretty confident we are going to get this thing cleared up before very long. We are not going to lose our post office,” says McIntyre.

According to McIntyre, the post office, located on the southwest corner of the downtown square, was originally constructed as a clothing store in the 1960’s by Albert Hainsfurther.

In the early 1980’s, Hainsfurther transformed the building into a post office. Wittee purchased the building last year.