millismedwaynews.com: The Medway Post Office at 115 Main Street closed on Aug. 31 without any official notice to regular mail customers.
“I got a call from a resident who said the post office is closing at the end of the month,” said Medway Town Manager Michael Boynton in mid-August. “The situation is frustrating, and some of it doesn’t even make sense.” Boynton said the Town has been entertaining concept ideas with landowner The Meehan Group, which also owns abutting properties, for the better part of two years. “Included in these discussions have been the primary uses that are there, including a gas station and food as well as a car wash and the post office. We’d been having very good conversations and deemed them very responsive to the Town.”
Boynton is puzzled by the quick closure of the Main Street location.
“There does not seem to be any basis for the post office to be moving in any haste to vacate that site,” said Boynton. “Is this the beginning of the [United States] Post Office cost-cutting? If you’re serious about not having a serious impact on the town, why is the Village Street Post Office not increasing their hours, and what do you propose to do about handicap accessibility? They’re shipping their carriers to Bellingham, and that, again, begs the question, ‘Why?’” Boynton said, “There’s no obligation for them to talk to the Town, we have no control over this whatsoever, but it would be nice. There was zero communication. Our expectation was they had no reason to leave – they were going to be phased into a [different] location at their site. The developer had been very transparent with anything they’ve presented to us.”
USPS response
USPS representatives said it is closing the Main Street location because “our current lease on this property expires August 31 and is not being offered for renewal,” according to Steve Doherty, Strategic Communications Specialist for USPS. “The Bellingham Post Office has adequate capacity to absorb the mail volume from Medway.” He said delivery to Medway mail customers will not be affected, though packages will have to be retrieved from Bellingham.
Doherty said no layoffs are planned as part of this move, and the USPS’ ‘Delivering for America’ plan “does not include any plans to close Post Offices.”
The Delivering for America plan is a 10-year strategy established in 2021 to guide “the transformation of the United States Postal Service from an organization in financial and operational crisis to one that is self-sustaining and high-performing.” Read more at bit.ly/USPS_DeliveringForAmerica
Landlord response
The Meehan Group adamantly denies evicting the post office from the Main Street location.
“Those allegations are absolutely erroneous, causing substantial harm to the potential developer,” said Tariq “Ty” Fayyad, Development and Acquisitions Manager for The Meehan Group, which has yet to finalize plans for the parcel.