Post Office Bends a Bit, Changes Its ZIP Code System : Addresses: Holly Park finally has a number all its own, instead of being split. The Postal Service changed its policy after congressional testimony revealed that mixups had led to deaths and missed mail.

Katy Carlson lived in Los Angeles, but her mailing address was Torrance. Eight years ago, that simple anomaly was partly responsible for the death of two little girls she had hoped to adopt.

When Carlson saw Jennifer Dibble, 5, and her sister Joann, 3, at the bottom of her fenced back-yard pool, she frantically called the operator and was connected with Torrance police.

Precious minutes were wasted while the officer established that Torrance police could not respond because her house was in the Los Angeles community of Harbor Gateway. Both sisters drowned, just a few days before Carlson was to sign their adoption papers.

The 911 emergency system has virtually eliminated the likelihood of such mix-ups today. But Los Angeles officials found the Dibbles’ story so compelling that they told it during congressional hearings this summer that focused attention for the first time on problems caused by the Postal Service’s ZIP code system.

Residents in more than 200 communities nationwide have mailing addresses and ZIP codes that do not conform to the boundaries of the communities in which they live.

Although some neighborhoods benefit by being able to use mailing addresses of nearby cities, residents in many others told Congress that they must accept lower resale values on their homes because of their postal zone. Others said they pay more for auto and home insurance, a fact the industry disputes.

Additionally, people locally and nationally complain about problems in getting voter material, dog licenses and library cards. Mortgage payments and other bills inadvertently wrongly addressed are routinely stamped “Return to Sender,” costing them thousands of dollars in late penalties every year.

Northridge homeowners who must use Sepulveda mailing addresses are so fed up with being associated with that community and its crime and drug problems that they have threatened to file a class-action suit against the post office to get a different ZIP code.

“It’s a whole quality of life issue,” said National League of Cities spokesman Randy Arndt. “There are all kinds of things that ZIP codes get involved with which can adversely affect a city.”

The Postal Service has defended its method of handing out ZIP codes--there are 43,000 nationwide--saying the system is designed for efficiency and that it shouldn’t have to deal with problems caused by businesses and others who use it for other purposes.

But pressured by bills in Congress and a General Accounting Office audit that revealed major differences in how requests for ZIP code changes are handled around the country, postal officials finally agreed this summer to begin drawing up guidelines to process requests for changes.

Holly Park, a community of about 750 homeowners on Hawthorne’s east side, is the first neighborhood that will receive a new ZIP code under the new policy. Postal officials will be watching how easily the Hawthorne Post Office copes with the change before approving similar requests from other communities.

For years, residents of Holly Park have shared ZIP codes and mailing addresses with either Los Angeles or Inglewood. Residents west of Van Ness Avenue use Inglewood 90303 on their mail; those to the east write Los Angeles 90047. To change all of their mailing addresses to Hawthorne 90250, computers will be reprogrammed, three mail carriers will be moved to the Hawthorne Post Office and sorters will have to learn new codes.

Under the yet-to-be-completed guidelines, postal authorities will have to answer requests for ZIP code changes within 60 days, said Tony Conway of the Postal Service. Postal officials will no longer be able to routinely deny requests, but instead will have to complete a detailed analysis of the costs and benefits of a change, he said. The new guidelines will also have provisions for appeal, he said, although it has yet to be determined how many residents need to favor a change for the Postal Service to begin the process.

Although many municipal leaders hailed the proposal, Arndt said the change “really does not go to some of the fundamental concerns we have . . . (because) it still leaves it with the Postal Service to decide whether they want to deal with this.”

Although many communities have complained about ZIP code problems since 1986, when a National League of Cities conference first focused attention on the problem, Holly Park got to the head of the line largely because of the efforts of Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Compton), whose district includes Hawthorne, postal officials said.

“He’s kept our feet to the fire on this issue,” Conway said.

Dymally, a member of the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee, co-authored several ZIP code bills last year--one that would have forced the Postal Service to realign ZIP codes and mailing addresses to conform with municipal boundaries and another that would have allowed communities to use their own names on mailing addresses.

The bills, supported by the National League of Cities, would have cost the Postal Service millions of dollars had they not died in committee, postal authorities said.

The administrative remedy appears to be a trade-off between postal and congressional authorities, although whether Dymally reintroduces one of his bills next year depends on how effective the guidelines are in dealing with community complaints, officials said.

To gear up for the June hearings on one of the bills, Hawthorne City Councilwoman Ginny Lambert sent letters to every Holly Park resident, asking them to write to her about problems caused by their addresses. She brought letters or messages from about 300 residents when she testified before the committee.

In one letter, aerospace worker Paul Lowe, a 24-year resident of the neighborhood, estimated that his Los Angeles mailing address costs him about $1,500 in auto insurance premiums every year.

Although he and his wife have clean driving records, they have been quoted as much as $4,000 a year for auto coverage for their two cars, while friends across town in similar circumstances pay substantially less, he said.

“It’s ridiculous what happens to people in this area because of ZIP codes,” Lowe, 54, said in an interview this week. “If you have a Hawthorne ZIP code, you pay 50% less.”

Barbara Doss, a gas company investigator and 20-year resident of the area, said an insurance agent gave her an $800 quote to insure her car, but when he found out she lived in Holly Park “he became very, very angry with me, like I was trying to put something over him, and it came out to $1,500.”

She said her Los Angeles mailing address has been a constant source of embarrassment, particularly when she has told someone she lives in Hawthorne. “You’re constantly in a position where people doubt your veracity,” Doss, 57, said. “It makes you look tacky.”

Holly Park resident Minnie Hadley wrote in her letter that many local voters were turned away from polling booths in the presidential election because of confusion over their address.

Lynda Roark, 48, complained that she had to pay $50 to retake the X-ray technician exam because she never received her license renewal form and inadvertently let it expire.

“It wasn’t so much the application fee as it was the inconvenience of having to retake the exam,” said her husband, Donald Roark, 49. “It took up half a day to do it.”

Communities nationwide have similar problems, according to the testimony.

During the hearings, Thornton, Colo., officials complained that last year $90,000 in sales tax revenue was “either completely lost or had to be recollected because retailers (mistakenly) paid according to their mailing addresses rather than their city,” Thornton Mayor Margaret Carpenter said in an interview this week.

Residents of Shannon Hills, Ark., complained about having to use a Mabelvale address, even though there is no town with that name. “One of our biggest problems is that maps do not show Mabelvale because Mabelvale does not exist, therefore if you are looking for us by our (post office) and have a state map, you cannot find us,” town officials said.

Independence, Mo., officials testified that ZIP code idiosyncrasies have led to inaccurate census counts, which adversely affects the amount of federal and state funding they receive for various programs.

And others repeated problems associated with higher insurance premiums or lower home values.

However, Mary Crystal, a spokeswoman for the Western Insurance Information Service, a consumer information group sponsored by insurance companies, said residents are misled into believing that ZIP codes determine their rates, though she acknowledges that adjacent ZIP codes can have different rates.

A person’s insurance rate “has nothing to do strictly with ZIP codes. It has to do with the territory in which someone lives and the claim costs for that area,” Crystal said.

The new ZIP code in Holly Park is “not, all of a sudden, going to magically change their rates,” she said. “It is not likely to have an effect.”

However, Klaas Bos, governor of the Society of Real Estate Appraisers’ Southern California district, said he has seen ZIP codes make a difference of as much as 10% of a house’s value simply because of the “snob appeal” of a better address.

“So help me, it shows up that people are willing to pay X dollars more or less depending on the mailing address and ZIP code,” Bos said.

Postal authorities remain largely unconvinced that ZIP codes need a nationwide overhaul. ZIP codes generally conformed to city boundaries when the system was created in 1963, but often it was more efficient to assign residents the ZIP code of a neighboring city’s post office, which was closer, said Postal Service spokesman Al Sarro.

Widespread changes to make zones match community boundaries are unlikely because they would be too costly and ultimately would boost stamp prices to intolerable levels, said officials.

“What is a ZIP code about? It’s all about sorting mail and getting it delivered,” Conway said. “I don’t believe the majority of the American public would want postal officials to be spending money to adjust ZIP code boundaries in order to enable individuals to sell their homes for more money.”