By Katherine Svenkeson

Mayoral candidates agree the post office needs to stay downtown

Oct 18, 2016 | 2:00 PM

With the voting day coming up fast, an issue that is important to the citizens of Battleford is one that has being sitting desolate for too long, the post office.

A bat infestation in 2015 forced Canada Post out of the building, which the company used since 1911. For almost one year the post office has not settled down in a permanent location.

Both candidates for mayor in the town and current councillors, David George and Ames Leslie, agree that it’s important the post office stay downtown, whether it means staying in the old building or not.

“It is very critical that the post office remain in the downtown core,” Leslie said. “Whether that’s going down the path to determine if Canada Post is viable in the old historic building or if a new structure needs to be built.”

Leslie’s “perfect world”, as he called it, would have the post office staying in its current building.

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“We need to determine, can we just stay in that old building? If they don’t want to go in an old building, maybe there’s something we can work at with the town and Canada Post to help supplement the cost of renovating that old building to stay in there,” Leslie said.

“Preferably, we’d love to see the Canada Post stay inside of the original building, the history of that building itself being one of the original post offices in this part of Saskatchewan, even just with the heritage it brings to the community,” he said.

Due to the financial issues tied to renovations that would have to be made, George said he would like to see something else occupy the building.

“The old post office, being 100 plus years old, it’s gonna be tough [to stay], because they did say at one time there would be a million dollars plus in renovations that needed to be done to get it to upgrade so the post people could be in there. So really I’d like to see something else go in there if that’s a possibility,” he said. “If Canada Post would be willing to give up that building, because people are probably not going to want to spend a whole bunch of money to purchase the place, but maybe they’re willing to put some money into it to renovate it and bring it up to speed. Maybe a gallery of some sort or something like that would be absolutely wonderful. I mean it’s a great looking building. It just needs some interior work and lots [of it].”

Leslie said if Canada Post leaves, renovation work would need to be modern, but still able to fit into the historic atmosphere of the downtown core.

At the end of it all, old building or not, both candidates agree that the post office needs to be downtown and are working with Canada Post to have the office in a centralized location.

“If for some reason Canada Post, structurally or from a sustainable sense, doesn’t feel like that’s the best route to take, I think as mayor and council we need to make sure that we hold ourselves and Canada Post and the federal government accountable to keep it downtown,” Leslie said. “The post office is very vital to the development and the financial viability of the downtown businesses and the people who use it.”

George said there have been extensive talks with Canada Post about keeping it nearby, and it all comes down to what the company will decide to do.

“What we need to do is get on side with [Canada Post] and say ‘hey look, we need to get something going down here, so people can feel better about themselves and get our downtown core back working again because I know it’s stressed out a lot of people that have buildings downtown and stores and restaurants and everything else.’ It’d be great to have Canada Post downtown where it belongs,” George said.

Canada Post could not be reached for comment by deadline.

Katherine.svenkeson@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @ksvenkeson