Mailing Goof Sends College Survey Way Off the Mark

Oops.

That was the reaction of a mailing house paid to send nearly 10,000 letters and surveys from the College of the Canyons to households in the surrounding Santa Clarita Valley.

The surveys were sent out as agreed. Unfortunately they went to addresses 45 miles away in Newbury Park, next to Thousand Oaks, in Ventura County.

“They have never had a problem like this at all,” said Nancy J. Mattice who, as the college’s assistant dean for institutional development, had prepared the letter and surveys. The mailing house, which Mattice declined to identify, sent the mailings to the wrong ZIP code, she said.

“Apparently, there was a great deal of miscommunication,” Mattice said with a slight laugh. “Isn’t that an understatement?”

Earlier this week, Mattice wasn’t laughing.

The college had planned to survey 10% of the Santa Clarita Valley’s households to learn how the college could better serve the community. The college sent 4,800 letters to the households last week alerting residents to expect a survey in the mail this week.

“Of the 48,000 households in the Santa Clarita Valley, you are one of the 4,800 to be selected to respond to the survey,” the letter said.

After a Newbury Park resident who received a letter alerted Mattice to the problem Monday, she called the mailing house. A day later, she got the grim news. “I didn’t have much of a sense of humor,” she recalled.

To make matters worse, the surveys had just been delivered to the post office. Mattice tried to intercept them, but when she got to the post office, “there wasn’t anybody at the bulk mail unit,” she said. “They were all at lunch.”

When she called back after lunch, Mattice learned that neither rain, nor sleet nor botched mailing keep the U.S. Postal Service from its appointed rounds. The surveys were gone. “We have a very fine post office in Santa Clarita,” she said with some irony.

The mailing house is reprinting the letters and surveys and will pay for another mailing, said Mattice, who dismissed the error as a fluke.

Sue Bozman, a college spokeswoman, pointed to the bright side to the fiasco: “It may get people looking forward to the survey.”