Just in time for the busy holiday season, a shuttered contract post office in the Knik area of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough will reopen on Dec. 14, the U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday.
The Knik Contract Post Office, next to Settlers Bay Lodge on Knik-Goose Bay Road, will offer full retail and mail delivery service under a new contractor who has leased the building, the Postal Service said.
The new operator of the Knik post office, Giovanna Rossi, did not want to comment. Rossi, who is affiliated with a Wasilla-area private mail service, said people can email sbmailservice@gmail.com with any questions.
The Postal Service closed the Knik facility operated under private contract on Sept. 18 after receiving what an investigator described as "an allegation regarding the possible delay of U.S. mail." The agency's investigative arm seized mail and the agency canceled the operator's contract.
The abrupt closure temporarily left about 2,000 residents of neighborhoods along Knik-Goose Bay Road without post office boxes or convenient mail service.
Postal Service representatives did not respond to requests for comment about the status of the investigation or the new contract Wednesday.
The former manager of the facility had hoped to open a privately run post office in the existing building at Settlers Bay. But the manager, Nina Vignola, said Wednesday that the Postal Service still hadn't approved her application to become a commercial mail receiving agency. Vignola gave up her lease on the post office building last month, she said. She still hopes to open a private post office in the area.
Postal Service spokeswoman Dawn Peppinger said in a press release that due to the need to move mail from the Wasilla Main Post Office to the Knik CPO, mail delivery to Knik customers will stop as of noon Dec. 11. Mail will be available for post-office box customers at Knik on Dec. 12. Peppinger said for this Saturday only, there will be no retail service at Knik, but parcel pickup will be available during normal Saturday hours.