The Uphams Corner Post Office branch will undergo a 60-day “discontinuance feasibility study” to review whether the Roxbury and Fields Corner offices, each located less than two miles away, can absorb Uphams Corner’s roughly 30,000 customers in the 02125 zip code. Community leaders opposed to the potential closing are urging residents to attend a public hearing from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. this evening in the MLK room at the Dorchester Bay Economic development Center at 594 Columbia Rd.

The Uphams Corner branch, located at 551 Columbia Rd. is one of 31 post offices in the Boston Postal District that federal officials have selected for possible discontinuation. The offices in question were selected due to their proximity to other post offices and stores that sell stamps, declining revenue, and an average annual income of less than $600,000 over the past three years. 

Under the current scheme, the Uphams Corner site will be under review for a 60-day period ending on Jan. 9, at which point local USPS officials will include comments from the public as well as their own review of the office’s performance in a report that will be submitted by mid-January to determine the fate of the branch.

U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, the ranking Democrat on the House committee that oversees the deficit-ridden U.S. Postal Service, said it seems the Uphams Corner branch is “pretty heavily used and it’s central.”

In a recent interview with the Reporter, Lynch said that “there is the ability to push back and stop some of these closings, but that involves finding another post office to close.”

There are 37,000 post offices across the nation, and 640,000 employees, with 150,000 of them eligible for full retirement. Lynch is pushing for a bipartisan bill that would provide for the early retirement of 120,000 postal employees in order to cut costs.

Examining properties the Postal Service is renting is another option, Lynch said.

“Obviously the cost of a building that we own, the post office owns, you’ve got very little overhead there,” he said. Asked about the Uphams Corner post office, which is a source of income to the owner of the property, the Uphams Corner Health Center, Lynch said the lease should be looked at to see if it’s “reasonable.”

USPS district discontinuation coordinator Michael Foley said about two thirds of the proposed sites are already under review and that only two offices have been removed from the list thus far: a Nantucket location that did not fit discontinuation criteria and a Chelsea office that no longer houses a retail outlet.

Foley said that unlike some previous rounds of discontinuation, the list of post offices up for review was passed to his office from USPS headquarters and framed the current study as a way to show which communities rely most on their local post office.

“Our job, because it’s a top down study, is to put a face on that community for Washington, to explain what the concerns are of the community and how vital the location may be to that community,” Foley said, adding that “there are a lot of offices we wouldn’t have added if we had done this locally, from the bottom up.”

Neighborhood advocates are hoping that a strong turnout for the public commentary session will show officials that many residents and business owners still rely on the branch.

Uphams Corner Health Center president Ed Grimes cited the large number of residents who lack internet access and would struggle to complete day-to-day activities.

“We realize that technology has had an adverse effect on the post office’s revenue, people using the internet for electric bill paying, for their banking, using e-mail and the like,” Grimes said. “But there are a large number of people here who simply do not have that option. The post office is a lifeline for them.”

Grimes also added that many residents still rent P.O. boxes at the branch as a way to ensure checks are not stolen out of their residential mailbox, while many in the neighborhood’s immigrant population use the branch as a way to ensure packages have proper postage to reach their destinations.

“It’s a vital institution that every community needs,” Grimes said. “Not to knock a rural community of 200 people, but we’re 30,000 people. We need a post office.”

Uphams Corner Main Streets executive director Max MacCarthy worries about the impact on small businesses.

“[Small business owners] literally have to close down the office for a few minutes, run to the post office and run back,” MacCarthy said. “Obviously, if you shut down the office here, that would be a huge disadvantage to them. They might fall behind on sending bills and packages, or worse, they might lose customers.”

Hancock Street Civic Association president Bob Mickiewicz he is concerned that residents who use the post office’s services the most could be unaware of the meeting, in part because he felt the discontinuation notice, mailed to 02125 residents, was confusing and was only printed in English.

“Most people, at least in my immediate neighborhood, don’t know anything about this.