The Dowell Post Office in Calvert County is tentatively closing April 1. Customers with street addresses will now have their mail delivered to their residence or business by the Solomons Post Office staff, effective Jan. 2.
“We’ve basically lost the lease because they are going to build housing there,” Solomons Postmaster Jim Horn said in a Dec. 28 interview with The Calvert Recorder. “Dowell has no delivery at this point.”
Horn said the United States Postal Service originally started talking about closing the Dowell location in January, but noted that “even April 1st isn’t set in stone.”
Horn reports nearly 500 postal customers along Dowell Road, in The Harbours at Solomons (the new development encroaching on the post office space) as well as various subdivisions to include Mill Creek, Windwood Harbour, Oyster Bay and Twin Cove, will be impacted by the closure and change in mail operations.
Those customers with post office boxes at the Dowell post office will need to convert to another form of delivery such as cluster boxes or a post office box at another location. Horn said cluster mailboxes have already been installed at townhouses and side streets.
“They are going to get street delivery — if they don’t want street delivery, they can get a P.O. box in Solomons,” Horn said.
Horn said there were only 200 post office boxes in Dowell, which resulted in a wait list. As a result, the post office started pursuing the delivery operations nearly two years ago when he took the helm in Solomons. The pending closure has now expedited the process.
“We think we’ve done the right thing for the community because they want street delivery — the vast majority kept asking,” Horn said.
The Dowell post office, which is open four hours a day Monday through Friday, and three hours on Saturday, is staffed by one person.
“That person will get absorbed into Solomons. We’re going to pick up a carrier,” Horn said, adding that no one will lose a job as a result of the closure.
That staffer will help with the additional 500 postal customers from Dowell. Currently, Solomons has 1,000 post office box customers and 700 delivery customers.
The closure of the Dowell post office will have some impact on Calvert County’s water and sewer customers in that immediate area.
Public Works Deputy Director of Enterprise Fund Operations Julie Paluda said in an email that there are 58 water and sewer customers with post office boxes at the Dowell post office.
Those customers must designate where they want to have their bill delivered.
The county offers an online portal where customers can view their water and sewer bill and usage history and pay online with a credit card via the “Pay Bill Online” link on the county’s Water and Sewer Division page at http://www.co.cal.md.us/index.aspx?nid=132.
