Whip Clark, Sens. Markey, Warren, Reps. Pressley, Lynch Demand USPS Cease Campaign of Post Office Closures in the Commonwealth

October 5, 2026

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (MA-05), Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Representatives Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) and Stephen Lynch (MA-08), today wrote to United States Postmaster General David Steiner; United States Postal Service (USPS) Senior Vice President of Facilities and Infrastructure Benjamin Kuo; and USPS District Manager for Massachusetts and Rhode Island Carissa Shea, urging them once again to reverse their proposed post offices closures in Massachusetts – this time in the city of Watertown, and in the Allston and Fields Corner neighborhoods of Boston. The lawmakers demanded accountability for USPS’ statewide campaign to close post offices and requested adequate public hearings and documentation from postal officials involved in these termination decisions.

In the letter, the lawmakers wrote, “From our experience advocating to keep adequate postal service in Massachusetts, it appears that USPS is engaged in a coordinated campaign to leverage lease renewals and construction projects as excuses to force unwanted and inappropriate closures. USPS fails to negotiate leases on good terms, uses its inability to come to a lease agreement as a pretext to declare an emergency, and then temporarily suspends a post office branch. It then leverages these temporary suspensions into proceedings to permanently shut down the post office location. The result is fewer communities with adequate postal presence, worse postal service, and profoundly negative impacts on residents and businesses who rely on their local post office locations.”

The lawmakers demanded a response to the following requests by October 20, 2026:

  1. Find a solution that restores local postal service to Watertown Square and Allston and ceases terminations of the Fields Corner and other post office locations;
  2. Provide the congressional offices with a full and updated accounting of all post office locations in Massachusetts;
  3. Host true public hearings in the communities impacted by USPS’ termination proposals;
  4. Enter into the public record for the Watertown Square and Allston termination proceedings this letter and all letters we and other elected officials have sent to USPS, and all testimony from the Boston City Council’s September 22, 2026 hearing on the Allston Post Office;
  5. Provide the congressional offices any and all USPS reports arising out of your facilities search and review of the Watertown Square and Allston post offices.

In June, Senator Markey celebrated news that USPS reversed course on closing the post office in the Town of Shutesbury and committed to opening a new location in the Town of Medway. Also in June, Senator Markey celebrated USPS’s decision to reverse the closure of the Shutesbury Post Office. In April, he led the Massachusetts congressional delegation in writing a letter to the USPS Inspector General Tammy Hull, demanding answers about the Massachusetts mail delivery system delays caused by understaffed and closed postal offices, inequitable mail delivery across communities, and USPS’s refusal to pay postal employees for overtime work. In 2024, Senator Markey successfully fought the closure of the Mission Hill and Beacon Hill Post Offices and the consolidation of the Brockton Processing and Delivery Center.

Read the full letter HERE.

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