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City looks to save its old post office
Old Post Office
The old Rincon Post Office - photo by Photo by Rick Lott

Rincon City Council has discussed taking the first steps to refurbish the city’s old post office building.

Much of Rincon’s historic past is simply not there anymore. There are a few of the older homes along the town’s railroad track and bits and pieces scattered around the city, but the iconic structures such as the old railroad depot are long gone.

It’s thought that the small building that served as one of Rincon’s early post offices dates to around the turn of the century and is one of the few historic public buildings left. City Manager Mike Phillips said he would like to see the building completely renovated, down to installing appropriate mail room hardware such as mail slots and a mail window.

The city has received one estimate of $15,000 for making the necessary repairs and is waiting to hear from one other person who may be volunteering to donate his labor on the project. The city is earmarking $25,000 for the work and special purpose local option sales tax funds are available for the project and should include not only the renovation but also the move to a new home.

In other council action Monday night, there was a lively discussion about how much residents should pay when they have a water line break on their side of the meter.

The issue came up at the last council meeting and carried over into this week as council members heard from someone who had a water line break, had it repaired, but then had to pay a water bill of more than $400.

Although the sewer portion of the bill was dismissed, the resident still owes hundreds of dollars for the enormous amount of water that came through the line before the repairs could be made. That follows the current city policy, but council members engaged in a discussion of whether the policy should be changed in cases such as this.

When it came out that someone in this circumstance ends up paying the highest per thousand gallon charge after the water flow reaches the 9,000-gallon mark, some on council suggested that it might be more fair to the residents to charge them at the mid-use $2.50 level, which would result in an approximate savings of about 25 percent. Councilman Levi Scott stressed that having a discussion like this was fine, but if council decided to make a change it should be fair and consistent across the board.