By Carmen Ensinger
This isn’t the first time Winchester has almost lost their post office. Eight years ago, the United States Postal Service threatened to shutter the doors of the Winchester Post Office.
“I talked to people with the postal service and I said you can’t do that, we are the county seat,” Mayor Rex McIntire said. “We had to take legal action and it cost us over $6,000 in legal actions and injunctions to prevent them from shutting it down back then.”
The owner of the building where the post office is located is in Indiana and McIntire said he has been in contact with him.
“He assured me it will be opened up before long,” McIntire said. “He has been going through all the bureaucratic hoopla to please the post office, but he said it will be repaired and reopened.”
Last month, a Winchester resident discovered what she thought was meant to be a city park, deeded to the city more than 150 years ago.
Lucy Reid discovered a five-acre tract of land off Coultas Road that hadn’t been taxed in years. She found a map that designates that area as Soldier’s Monument Park
Reid said she has searched tirelessly to find the legal owner of the property but could not find a deed. She also discovered the property has been used as a private property for a very long time and no one has ever paid taxes on it.
The council approved paying the Scott County Abstract Company to do a title search on the property. City Attorney John Paul Coonrod shared the results of that title search with the council.
“They went all the way back to the first land grant to the U.S. Government,” Coonrod said. “The results are that a deed conveying title to this parcel was filed in 2007 to Robert Frost and Ed Frost.”
The title search discovered that the parcel of land had been in the Frost family since 1856. Prior to the Frosts owning it, it was owned by William Morgan and before that Thomas Morgan. Before that, the U.S. Government transferred the land to William Smith in 1829.
“So, I think it is pretty definitive that it is Frost property,” Coonrod said. “The fact that no one has paid taxes on it is on the County. It is no oversight on the part of the city or the Frosts.”
Pool Board Chairman Bill Jacquot reported that the winterization on the pool is now complete.
“We have an electrical contractor down there now working on the electrical box that got damaged in that storm in June of 2023,” Jacquot said. “The city crew and the Department of Corrections work crew have been putting in boards and concrete blocks on top of the grates to prevent leaves in the gutters.”
Several trees were removed along the east side of the fence with at least one of those trees being dead.
Jacquot asked that an income and expense sheet be run for the pool. The income at the pool for this year including admissions and pool parties, come to $56,264 while the expenses came in at $84,856. The pool ended up losing $28,591.69.
“We are going to have to talk about raising the prices again next year because we can’t keep doing this,” Jacquot said. “The price of chemicals is going up and people will just have to realize if we want to keep the pool open, the rates will have to go up.”
The council approved the purchase of three new portable radios for the police department at the request of Police Chief Steve Doolin. The cost of the radios are $1,500 each, without purchasing the software.
“We need the portable radios right now,” Doolin said. “The car radios can wait. In the future, if the Sheriff or even if Morgan County switches their radios, then we will need these to be able to communicate with them.”