Greenville postal clients, who have been driving 50 miles round trip for three years to retrieve mail from Quincy, will finally see their commute end. And for Canyon Dam customers, the drive will at least be shorter.
Plumas County Supervisor Kevin Goss announced that the newly built postal facility on Main Street in Greenville will open Aug. 12. It will be a soft opening, he said, to allow postal employees to get acquainted with the building and develop their routines. Goss has campaigned to reopen the postal facility.
He hailed the long-awaited reopening: “It’s about time these victims of the Dixie Fire can finally get their mail in Greenville.”
Greenville post office box customers will be asked to present photo IDs to retrieve their new keys, said USPS District Manager Raj Sanghera. The Greenville Post Office will also serve as a temporary pickup location for Canyon Dam Post Office box customers effective Aug. 12. They, too, will need to bring a photo ID to get a postal box key.
Destroyed in the Dixie Fire
Both the Greenville and Canyon Dam postal facilities were among the 144 commercial structures lost in the 2021 Dixie Fire, which burned nearly 1 million acres of mostly forested land in California’s largest single wildfire. Canyon Dam was completely destroyed, and downtown Greenville was largely demolished by the fire.
After the fire, many former box holders installed postal boxes on their property for rural delivery. Since August 2021, the Quincy Post Office has been serving the approximately 467 Greenville postal customers, said Kristina Uppal, media liaison for the postal district that includes Plumas County.
The Greenville postal building was rebuilt by Albert Chow, of Los Angeles, who has owned it for decades. Postal officials have worked consistently with Chow, equipment vendors and contractors, said Uppal. She cited Chow’s “Herculean effort” to rebuild the office so operations could return to normal.
Once the building was completed this spring, USPS officials began addressing the details of customizing a retail window and installing post office boxes, Uppal, said. By April, officials in Congressman Kevin Kiley’s office were expecting a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“Somebody at the postal service dropped the ball in April and May.”
Kevin Goss, Plumas County supervisor
All that was missing was a certificate of occupancy, said Pamela Grant, Kiley’s district representative. “We were all very excited,” Grant said.
It didn’t happen.
“Somebody at the postal service dropped the ball in April and May,” Goss told The Plumas Sun. “I was livid.”
He reported issues with an internet router. The USPS sent a Verizon-based router, which does not perform well in Greenville. An AT&T router arrived July 26, Goss said.
In a July 24 email to The Plumas Sun, however, Uppal said reopening the Greenville Post Office was “not currently stalled by internet.” She provided no details about what caused the delay.
Unhappy postal clients and citizens began contacting Kiley and other federal officials following a July 28 story in The Plumas Sun. That helped “100%,” said Goss. “They don’t like negative publicity.”
Working to reopen the Greenville Post Office has been both frustrating and enlightening for Goss. “I trusted the U.S. Postal Service to handle this in an appropriate manner. I’ll never do that again,” he said.
The Indian Valley Chamber of Commerce will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the U.S. Postal Service at a later date, Goss said.
