Knik postal customers to get holiday mail

After months of disruption, regular mail service will begin Monday for residents of the Knik area near Wasilla.

A dispute between the owner of a contract postal facility in Knik and the U.S. Postal Service had shuttered the facility this summer. Postal officials cited slow delivery of mail to boxholders at the Knik contract office, while facility operator and owner of the building that houses it, Chuck Spinelli, says a contract dispute ended his relationship with the post office.

Dawn Peppinger is a marketing manager for USPS’ Alaska district.

“We have a successful bidder for the Knik contract post office. Now the location is the same, they were able to lease the same facility.”

She says the mailboxes, which earlier had been removed from the Knik facility, are being replaced.

“Those boxes were moved this week, and they immediately began work on installing, because the boxes required framing and trim and being built back into the wall. I talked to them yesterday and it sounds like everything is being on track completed by Friday.”

Peppinger says full retail and parcel service will be restored starting Monday at 9 a.m., and adds that Knik residents can start picking up boxed mail and parcels on Saturday at the Knik contract post office site. No mail service will be available to Knik boxholders in Wasilla, starting noon on Friday, while their mail is transitioned from Wasilla to the Knik facility.

Peppinger says the contract for the facility has been awarded to Corrie Rossi, who will lease the building from it’s current owner.

About 1,600 Knik residents have been forced to drive to downtown Wasilla to pick up their mail since September, when the post office launched an investigation into the matter and closed the contract facility indefinitely. Peppinger says she cannot comment on the status of the investigation.