Posted on 03/07/2009 5:10:20 AM PST by radar101
The Postal Service bought this 8,400-square-foot South Carolina home so an employee could relocate.
LAKE WATEREE, South Carolina (CNN) -- At a time when the U.S. Postal Service says it is experiencing a financial crisis, it purchased a $1.2 million home from an employee so he could relocate, a CNN investigation has found.
Postal Service spokesman Greg Frey said the home will be resold, as others have been.
"It's not like we threw away a million dollars," Frey told CNN. "We are hoping it's going to go for the appraised value."
But a real estate agent in the area said the home could be a tough sell in a depressed housing market -- and the USPS said it lost an average of more than $58,000 on the 500-plus homes its relocation program bought and sold in 2008.
The 8,400-square-foot, six-bedroom home on Lake Wateree, about 30 miles north of Columbia, is likely to be the last million-dollar home purchased by the Postal Service.
But the program has raised eyebrows among critics and is under scrutiny by the USPS inspector-general's office in the wake of a CNN investigation.
The South Carolina home belonged to Ronald Hopson, the former postmaster in Lexington, South Carolina, and his wife, Evelyn. The property includes five acres, four bathrooms, two half-baths and an indoor swimming pool. Watch a tour of luxurious home »
Hopson is now the customer service manager for the USPS branch in Carrollton, Texas. He would not discuss the house and referred CNN to the service's press office for additional questions.
SIU Blog: Post office mansion? Just weeks earlier, Postmaster General John Potter told a congressional subcommittee that the post office was considering cutting back mail delivery because of the economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
ML/NJ
Whoa! Nice writeoff!
It must be assumed that this was a non-voluntary transfer. I once worked for a federal agency and that was the policy they developed after losing a couple of grievances because the alternative to accepting the transfer was dismissal. They contracted with a specialist real estate company for that purpose.
I would only question why he was transferred in the first place.
Nearly all government agencies are staffed with liberal democrats who do nothing but steal money from taxpayers and this is what they are best at.
These people don't even try to hide their crimes any longer.
Sharpen your pitchforks, and grease & sharpen your guillotines. Our Tree of Liberty is wilting.
Send less mail.
What about the 2.3 Million one?
Forget about the commercial Where’s the Beef, now we have Love Dat Pork
Must be Postmaster Hopson managed to get himself some decent bonuses each year to be able to afford such a nice house.
Awful big house for a postmaster. I guess the taxes were so high, he couldn’t afford the landscaping.
A 9 to 5 USPS customer service manager can afford an executive mansion? That's a 2 month project just to pack and unpack 8,400 square feet of house belongings.
Looks like the "retirment home" that Reverend Wright's flock purchased for him.
I'm going to pass it along in e-mail, and I encourage everyone else to do the same.
Something just doesn’t smell right.
My company once was a tenant in a building that was full of real estate and finance companies. During smoke breaks I learned that a lot of these huge houses had very little furniture and a few empty rooms. After a mortage payment and a Volvo parment there wasn’t much left for these two income Yuppies to get furniture and they were too uppity to get second hand stuff.
LOL, he arranged the whole thing to unload the dog and make a few hundred thousand.
The postal service needs to be sold to the highest bidder, Who will start at $5.00.”real estate not included”
But among the mail handlers, clerks and carriers who get their hands dirty and sweat to actually move the mail, there's plenty of conservatives.
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