Jun 4, 2015 3 min read

Canon-McMillan School District has filed a petition in Washington County Court to obtain the Muse post office by eminent domain, but has offered the U.S. Postal Service “the opportunity to remain at that site for a year if the district is successful in acquiring the property.”

Attorneys for the school district filed a declaration of taking on April 27 against four owners of the building that houses the Muse post office, including Cecil Township resident Dominick DiMatteo, and the U.S. Postal Service.

The school district released a statement Wednesday responding to concerns that the post office would close.

“The district has no control over that determination, the United States (Postal) Service is the only entity with the authority to make that decision,” it said.

DiMatteo received a letter April 20 from Peacock Keller, Canon-McMillan’s solicitors, authorizing a formal purchase offer of the property, located at 200 Muse-Bishop Road. He said he was given four days to respond and that an extension request was denied.

The acquisition is a part of plans for a new Muse Elementary School, slated to open before the 2017-18 school year.

School Street, which runs directly past the post office, would need to be widened for access to the school, thus necessitating the removal of the post office.

“The district has been working … to revise the site plan’s access and egress using School Street. The revisions include widening and straightening the road. In order to accomplish that task the district must purchase property along School Street,” read a statement released by the school district Tuesday.

Under Pennsylvania law, a school district can “exercise eminent domain authority against property located within its geographic boundaries” for public use as long as it compensates the property owner.

“USPS has a leasehold interest in the Muse Post Office building through 2020 and plans to continue postal operations there,” stated Tad Kelley, corporate communications for the postal service, in an email.

In more than two decades with the Postal Service’s Western Pennsylvania district, Kelley said he has never been faced with an eminent domain issue.

Residents who use the Muse post office receive their mail in post office boxes. Kelley said 316 of 514 boxes at the post office are rented. There is no delivery from the facility, which also offers counter service for postal products.

Melissa Bevan Melewsky, an attorney with Pennsylvania Newspaper Association who is not involved in the case, said that the fact that residents might not have access to the post office wouldn’t necessarily prevent the taking of the property.

“It’s a factor that the court might consider as one of many factors,” Melewsky said. “The court is going to accept all relevant information.”

Kelley would not comment on any legal action.