By Mary Beth Martin Rappahannock News Staff Writer Real

By Mary Beth Martin

Rappahannock News Staff Writer

Real estate acquisition for the new Amissville post office is alive and well, said Dick Thompson, facilities manager for the U. S. Postal Service in Merryfield. The U. S. Postal Service’s legal department has the acquisition package, which is a routine procedure, he said.

“It is mandated that the legal department bless it,” Thompson said. “It is in their hands.”

The property under consideration is located adjacent to the Amissville Baptist church on Route 642 about -^one-fourth mile from U.S. 211. The government has moved as slowly as January molasses since July 1998 about its pending decision for the property. “They surveyed the property and dug test holes, but I haven’t heard anything,” said owner Kenneth Ring. He added a real estate agency or agent is not involved with the sale, and he had signed only a willingness to sell letter, not a sale contract in mid-July 1998. Averill and Kenneth Ring stated that they were willing to sell the property for $15,000.

County Administrator John McCarthy said he spoke in late November 1998 with Rice Associates, an architectural firm in Northern Virginia that works for the U.S. Postal Service. “They did testing and asked simple questions about set back, but submitted nothing,” he said.

In order for the county to approve the site for the post office, the property needs to be rezoned from village/residential to commercial, and that depends on approval by the highway and health departments, McCarthy said. “At his point I don’t have any idea of the building site and road, so it is impossible to say. There are no problems, but we have nothing to work from,” he said.

Postmistress Beverly Rath said she was concerned that the curve on the road would make the location unsuitable. However, Thompson said that the curve in the road posed no problem.