A Central Coast post office is forced to take down photographs of local soldiers serving overseas.
Some are likening it to a wall of shame. Since 2001, pictures of men and women in the military have been a fixture of the Paso Robles Post Office until this morning.
“What happened to the pictures? Why were they taken down?” asked Shelley Reeger, who is a military wife.
All morning Paso Robles postal employees were answering tough questions.
That is because just before the post office opened its doors Friday morning, a board covered with pictures of local soldiers had to be taken down after a compliant was made to its Consumer Affairs Department…
…The wall of photos got its start after some post office employees wanted to show their support for local troops back in 2001.
But a spokesperson for the United States Post Office says regulations specify that only official postal announcements and other government notices can be put up on the walls.
“We just cannot put those photos back up, they should not have been up there to begin with,” said United States Postal Service spokesperson Richard Maher.
Policy or not, even the Mayor of Paso Robles has stepped in.
“I’m looking forward to hearing from the congressmen. They have indicated to me that they are looking into this,” said Paso Robles Mayor Frank Mecham.
Rules are rules I guess, so I’m not particularly upset that these pictures had to come down. If you start letting people use space in a public building for one kind of display, pretty soon everyone wants access. It seems awfully stupid in this case, but then what is the United States Postal Service if not a colossal monument to stupidity?
Still, though, what kind of a jackass files a complaint about a display like this?