4 post offices could be closed

Four Newport Beach post offices are on a list of 677 stations the United States Postal Service could consider closing or consolidating to save money.

The local stations the postal service might consider closing include the picturesque Balboa Island Post Office on Marine Avenue.

With its quaint gray and white facade, the Balboa Island Post Office has been a mainstay of island life for generations.

“It’s one of the few landmarks that we have here that has stayed the same and that’s why we love it,” Balboa Island resident Jeanne Gerbi said.

Gerbi’s family has owned a house on the island since 1946. She remembers the little post office looking just the same when she was a child as it does now.

“It’s very important on this little island. We have a lot of older people here who don’t drive and it would be horrible to lose it,” Gerbi said. “It’s been here ever since I can remember. It’s the big meeting place in town. You see everyone there.”

Many island residents still keep post office boxes at the little post office on Marine Avenue, said John Robinson, marketing director for the Marine Avenue Business Improvement district.

“There’s a lot of people here who just don’t even drive who walk to it and use it,” Robinson said. “It would be a shame to lose it.”

Other local post offices that the U.S. Postal Service might look into closing or consolidating include the Balboa and Bay postal stations and the Bay station stamp store.

The U.S. Postal Service submitted a list to Congress last week of post offices across the study that could be studied for possible consolidation or closure.

The Postal Service choose the stations that were close to other post offices, smaller substations of main post offices and whether the buildings are owned or leased, said Richard Maher, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Southern California.

“Mail volume has dropped over the last few years and as the economy has gotten bad, our retail transactions have dropped,” Maher said. “People have changed the way they do business as well.”

More people are using postal service’s website to ship packages or buy stamps, which means less traffic at local post offices across the country, Maher said.

Newport Beach has six post offices, including one in Corona del Mar.

Where Are They?

Newport Beach post offices that could be studied for possible closure:

 Bay Station Post Office and Bay Station Stamp Store, 191 Riverside Ave.

 Balboa Station Post Office, 204 Main St.

 Balboa Island Post Office, 206 Marine Ave.