Lecompton post office safe from closure, Jenkins says

? U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Topeka, said Friday that the post office in Lecompton is safe from being closed.

A patron goes into the U.S. Post Office in Lecompton.

A sign displayed Friday in Lecompton expresses the sentiment of some in the town about their postal service.

“My sense is you are going to be fine,” Jenkins told nearly 100 people who attended a town hall meeting.

Several Lecompton residents raised alarms that the post office was vulnerable to budget cuts by the U.S. Postal Service.

The Postal Service recently announced it will study the possible closure of 3,700 post offices nationwide, including 156 in Kansas.

Jenkins said there were 33 possible closures in her eastern Kansas district. But she said Lecompton, a historic town midway between Lawrence and Topeka, was not one of them.

Still, Lecompton residents expressed fear about the future of the post office because a new postmaster has not been named after a three-year vacancy, and mail carriers, whose routes originated in Lecompton, were recently switched to the post office in Perry. There are signs around town that read, “Return Postmaster and Carriers to Lecompton.”

The Postal Service has said movement of the carriers was done for efficiencies and should not be interpreted as a sign of further cuts are coming.

Victoria Roberts Bahnmaier, the former postmaster who retired, said Lecompton is growing and should have a postmaster and originating routes.

“This post office serves a lot of older people,” she said, who would have trouble going elsewhere for their mail service.

Paul Bahnmaier, president of the Lecompton Historical Society, said the town needs a post office. “This community is a growing community in a growing county.” He has collected support from numerous leaders and the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce to fight for the post office.

Jenkins assured the crowd that “we will go through the wall on this for you.”