CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - Plans to close Yellowstone National Park's east entrance for road construction should be postponed to help the area's businesses recover from unplanned closures in 2003 and 2004, Gov. Dave Freudenthal said in a letter to park Superintendent Suzanne Lewis.

The closures are planned in May and October. Freudenthal thinks they should wait until 2007, particularly given the absence of a federal highway bill.

"Without a defined and secure source of funding and with definite reconstruction needs, resources must be allocated on a priority basis. To this end, I can appreciate that the East Entrance Road should garner your attention for improvement," he wrote in a letter sent Friday.

"Regardless, the impacts that will attend the proposed closures are too great to rely on congressional inaction and uncertainty as justification.

"In the end, the only certainty in this discussion will be the fracturing of the economy of Cody, the Big Horn Basin and Wyoming if the proposed closures are finalized."

Freudenthal also said he wished Lewis had brought up the planned closure when they spoke Feb. 9. "In the future, I trust that the state and those communities affected by similar Park management activities will be consulted with as early in the process as possible," he said.

He said Sen. Hank Coe, R-Cody, told him about the planned closure Thursday.

The east entrance was temporarily closed by a mudslide last summer and by a wildfire in the summer of 2003.