Are local post offices closing? ‘No,’ or at least ‘not yet’ says the U.S. Postal Service

By Nadine Cafaro
Posted 4/12/23

After a news article went out a few weeks ago regarding the closure of 15 local Hudson Valley post offices, locals went into a frenzy. Many can be relieved knowing this isn’t entirely …

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Are local post offices closing? ‘No,’ or at least ‘not yet’ says the U.S. Postal Service

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After a news article went out a few weeks ago regarding the closure of 15 local Hudson Valley post offices, locals went into a frenzy. Many can be relieved knowing this isn’t entirely true.

The story distributed by a local radio station listed the following post offices for restructure: Beacon, Clintondale, Cornwall, Cornwall-on-Hudson, Fishkill, Maybrook, Modena, Montgomery, New Paltz, Pine Bush, Rock Tavern, Salisbury Mills, Walden, Wallkill and Wappingers Falls. It’s part of “Delivering for America.” A ten-year plan unveiled in the fall of 2022 to modernize the postal service as well as create financial stability and better service.

Under the plan, new “Sorting and Delivery Centers” (S&DC) would be created to serve as hubs for the surrounding area. The General Mail Facility at 97 Enterprise Drive in the Town of Newburgh would become one of those S&DCs. Others planned include Gainesville, Florida, Panama City, Florida, Woburn, Massachusetts, Utica, New York, and Bryan, Texas.

The only one of these new S&DC centers that’s up and running is in Athens, GA and it’s been a much slower process that USPS initially planned,” says Matt Paxton, Postal Chair and member of the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee for the National Newspaper Association. “But, these are being rolled out all over the country.”

The Town of Newburgh facility, built in 1990, currently serves as a regional hub where sacked mail is handled and distributed to local postal offices. It also has a business mail entry unit, where newspapers, political mailers and assorted other forms of bulk mail are delivered. Under the new plan, letter carriers from the surrounding post offices would now report to that location to pick up sorted mail for delivery in their communities.

“As we move forward with this initiative, customers will see no changes to their local post office retail operations. No post offices will be closed and PO Box service will not be changed,” Mark Lawrence, Strategic Communications Specialist for the United States Postal Service wrote in an email.

While the sorted process would be shifted, postal officials say that local post offices would remain open for other operations such as mailing packages, selling stamps and for post office box rentals.