A St. Petersburg resident says St. Petersburg’s Midtown Post office is in need of some repairs.
In an email to Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, Tate Leigh shared a photograph showing a crumbling tile in a drop ceiling over one postal worker who’s being cooled off by a small battery-powered fan. A busted light near the crumbling tile is adorned with an orange tag that reads, “DO NOT USE. Remove from operation immediately.”
Leigh added that the air in the post office felt “10 years old.”
“I asked how long the AC has been broken, everyone in the building gave me a chuckle,” Leigh wrote. In her email, Leigh recalls moving to St. Pete three years ago and asking a worker at the Midtown Post Office—at 1760 16th St. S. in south St. Petersburg—if the office’s air-conditioner was broken.
“I watched as elderly people tried catching their breaths under their mask while waiting to buy stamps. I could literally hear their breathing get louder and deeper as they tried to catch any air available,” Leigh added. Leigh also asked a worker to estimate how long the air-conditioning has been the way it is.
“She said, ‘As long as I’ve been here… and I’ve been here for three years. It’s the front door,’” Leigh wrote.
The worker told Leigh that when the front door opens, cold air gets out, and that the post office needs some kind of divider between the door and the rest of the post office to keep the air in. The worker added that the air conditioning was repaired last week.
“‘It’s working now—doesn’t feel like it, but we just need that door divider,’” the worker told Leigh.
Leigh added that Midtown is “a very busy post office.”
“It provides an essential service to most of the south side residents. There is usually always a line of people, waiting with masks on in 90+ degree Florida weather,” Leigh wrote. “There has to be something that can be done to fix this problem for the 100s of people in the community who use this post office every day. “
In an email to CL, City of St. Petersburg Spokesperson Benjamin Kirby said that last week the mayor spoke to St. Petersburg’s Postmaster Jacquelyn R. Villemaire about voting by mail.
“I understand the mayor will again speak to the postmaster about ensuring the working conditions there are at least adequate and that the office serves the community well,” Kirby added.
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This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2020.
