Springtime mail in Washington?

‘We are at the mercy now of the Army Corps of Engineers’

Washington Mayor Fred Catlin estimates the town’s new post office will be open sometime this spring — granted the U.S. Department of Defense approves.

“We have a small area that is wetlands,” Catlin explained at the Washington Town Council’s monthly meeting on Monday. “The really ironic, perhaps sad part of this is that area that is encompassed by the wetlands… very small, perhaps 10 by 15 square feet… needs to get the sanctioning of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who have had the application for six weeks and have not responded yet. So we are basically ready to go after we get that approval.

“When will it come we have no idea.” Catlin said all of developer Tim Tedrick’s other final site plans were to be submitted to the county Wednesday morning of this week and “all the things that have been approved by the town council and zoning administrator are sent on to be submitted as well.”

He said Tedrick has been contacting the Army Corps of Engineers weekly. The corps is a federal agency under the Defense Department that primarily oversees dams, canals, flood protection — and wetlands, obviously — in the United States and around the world.

“I would also like to take the opportunity to… praise the U.S. Postal Service and the postmaster general for their support to expedite this process as much as can be done,” Catlin added. “We are at the mercy now of the Army Corps of Engineers. Once that gets done, we are ready to go.”

“The good news is once that approval comes, things will be happening very, very fast,” he said, quoting Tedrick’s estimate that the building shell will take about 60 days to complete, and the interior less than a month.

To view more of the meeting, at which the council also discussed the town’s budget and water treatment and sewer maintenance, please visit our video page at: rappnews.com/video