by Ian Elliot
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Apr 10/98) - Inuvik has got its post office bulletin board back.

A storm of outrage was sparked after the board was taken down as part of the ongoing renovations to the Mackenzie Road branch, an action that caused Inuvik residents to deluge Canada Post's Whitehorse office with complaints.

"Tell people that the board is going back up," said Grant Pearson on Thursday afternoon. "We'll have it back as soon as we can."

Pearson said he was averaging about a call a minute from Inuvik residents on Thursday afternoon and every one wanted the board to be reinstalled.

"People have been good about it," he said. "They haven't been angry, they've just firmly pointed out that they wanted it back. And as a Northerner myself, I understand what boards like that mean to people."

Town council, though, is forwarding a longer list of problems it has with the post office's joint venture with the Bank of Montreal. Among the problems it has with the space-sharing arrangement are a lack of parking outside, long lines of people waiting to use the instant teller that can make it difficult to get around inside the post office and an interior door with a lockable knob which shut down the post office on the weekend after children locked the door as a prank.

The parking situation is seen as the most serious because there are only a handful of spaces outside the post office and the streets surrounding it are all no-parking due to the heavy traffic there.

Town council is forwarding a letter outlining its concerns about the new joint venture to Canada Post. One of the ideas being considered is having employees of the post office and the Parks Canada office upstairs park in a nearby lot to free up space for customers.