U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde continues to seek information for a Rabun County community.
“The Mountain City citizens deserve answers and we are going to get them answers,” Clyde told The Clayton Tribune in reference to what is next for the residents of the county’s second largest city after their U.S. Post Office was shuttered at the end of February.
Mountain City residents now have either shifted to a post office box at the Rabun Gap post office or erected a mailbox at their residences.
But plenty of questions remain unanswered.
“I wish the federal government moved faster than it does,” said Clyde to the newspaper at the inaugeral First Responders Banquet at the Civic Center in Clayon on Aug. 31.
Whether it will have a direct effect on Mountain City’s postal crisis is unknown, but proposed changes made by the congressman may help other post offices in the future who had the operations immeditately terminated.
As part of amendments being made to the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Bill FY2024, Clyde submitted an “emergency suspension of opertions” amendment proposal on July 13.
“It may not fix the Mountain City issues, but it assures it never happen anywhere else across America. At least that may be some consolilation for what has happened,” Clyde said.
During the first responders banquet, event organizer David Cross publicly thanked Clyde for standing up for the Mountain City residents against the U.S. Postal Service.
Cross’s recognition of Clyde received applause from the more than 400 in attendance.
The amendment stopping future abrupt postal service office closures is one of a dozen of appropriations bills scheduled for potential passing later this month on the FSGG bill. If passed, the amendment would next go to the U.S. Senate.
The paragraph insert reads, “The Committee is concerned with the effects that the immediate suspension of operations at the Mountain City, Ga., post office has had on its surrounding community. The Committee urges USPS to promptly notify the community of a rural post office when lease termination -- and a subsequent emergency suspension of operations -- is likely, with the goal of providing at least a 30-day advance notice. Additionally, the Committee urges USPS to provide updates every 60 days following an emergency suspension to this Committee and to the community of such post office on the status and expected reopening of said post office.”
This language is expected to be in the report language for the FSGG bill.
All 12 of the submitted bills still have to go through the U.S. House and then potentially to the U.S. Senate.
Mountain City officials continue the search for answers regarding the sudden closure of the Mountain City Post Office Feb. 28.