INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — The U.S. Postal Service is proposing the relocation of the Vero Beach Tropic Branch, 600 6th Avenue to the Vero Beach Carrier Annex, located at 1551 U.S. 1 in the K-Mart plaza.
Before making the decision, though, officials want to get public input and have scheduled a meeting at the Indian River County Chamber of Commerce for Monday, July 29. The meeting will be held at 5 p.m. The Chamber is located at 1053 20th Place, Vero Beach.
The Tropic Branch Post Office and the Carrier Annex are 1 1/2 miles apart. The annex currently has no retail service or Post Office Box delivery. By relocating the Tropic Branch to the annex, the annex would be able to offer both services.
If the move were approved, Tropic Branch customers would keep their current Post Office Box numbers and ZIP Codes and retail hours will remain the same, according to Post Office officials.
In 2009, the U.S. Postal Service placed the Tropic Branch office on a list to evaluate for closure. After finding out that the branch was in jeopardy, employees circulated a petition that garnered 2,116 signatures in a matter of 20 hours. The USPS later took the branch off the list of consideration.
“The recent recession coupled with the shift to digital communications has had a dramatic effect on the Postal Service,” the U.S. Postal Service said in a prepared statement about the public meeting. “In 2000, 5 percent of Americans paid their bills online. Today that number has reached 60 percent. Mail volume peaked at 213 billion in 2006 and has since plummeted by more than 25 percent.”
Those who cannot attend the public meeting on Monday are encouraged to submit written comments between now and Aug. 27. Those comments can be sent to Diana Alvarado, Facilities Headquarters – Southern Area Implementation Team, U.S. Postal Service, 1300 Evans Ave. Ste. 200, San Francisco CA 94188-8200.
