Post office loses Opportunity

After almost three years as a city, Spokane Valley finally has a post office branch to its name.

“We had an opportunity, once we incorporated, to press the U.S. Postal Service to create more of a Spokane Valley post office,” said Councilman Mike DeVleming, the city’s first mayor. “I just thought that was one of the things that was important as a new city.”

From their office windows at City Hall, some Spokane Valley officials could gaze across Sprague Avenue and see the Opportunity post office branch, named for the small township dissolved in 1974.

No longer. At a ceremony Monday the facility unveiled its new moniker – the Spokane Valley branch.

Approving the new name took nearly two years.

“It’s no small task to make these changes,” said Lisa Nystuen, a Postal Service customer relations coordinator.

The proposal made its way through the Spokane postmaster, a regional manager and across the desks of officials in Washington, D.C., before the new blue letters could be affixed to the building, Nystuen said.