Oak Park ZIP Code Fight Doesn’t Add Up : Ventura County: Residents pay higher insurance premiums and other costs because of link to neighbor Agoura Hills in L.A. County.

Steve Iceland’s ZIP code nearly cost him an extra $1,200 this year for health insurance.

Iceland lives in Oak Park, an unincorporated community in southeastern Ventura County that has the misfortune of sharing the 91301 ZIP code with Agoura Hills, just over the line in Los Angeles County.

The insurance company billed Iceland at the higher rate it charges Los Angeles County residents who, it seems, are not as healthy as those in Ventura County.

Iceland had to send the company a copy of his property tax bill to prove his residence was on the healthier side of the county line.

“It’s been my responsibility, when questioned, to prove I don’t live in Los Angeles County. And it shouldn’t be,” Iceland said.

Insurance premiums are just the half of it.

Magazine subscriptions, mail-order merchandise, car registrations, even the tax on chicken burritos--Oak Park’s ZIP code have caused problems for them all.

Some residents say Oak Park deserves a ZIP of its own.

“It’s not really a case of identity, or enhancing property values. It’s a real issue of dollars and cents,” said David Ross, who for years has kept book on Oak Park’s ZIP code woes.

One problem arises from the difference in sales taxes between the two counties.

It is 8.25% in Los Angeles County and only 7.25% in Ventura County.

Ross said mail-order firms and magazines often use the higher tax rate on Oak Park orders because they consider any address in the 91301 ZIP code to be in Los Angeles County.

He got so used to it that he printed form letters to send to each company correcting their mistakes.

The ZIP code has even zapped Ventura County coffers.

During the 1970s, Ross said, Los Angeles County received more than $80,000 in road taxes that should have gone to Ventura County.

The problem was that automobiles registered to Oak Park residents were incorrectly credited to Los Angeles County.

Iceland said the registration renewals for his family’s three cars occasionally are credited to Los Angeles County rather than Ventura County.

The issue even confuses some Oak Park merchants.

When a new shopping center opened last year in Oak Park, Ron Stark, a member of the Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council, went shopping at every one of the new stores.

He went not to welcome them, but to check their receipts.

Stark said all of them, from a Thrifty Drug Store to El Pollo Loco fast-food chicken restaurant, had been charging the higher Los Angeles County sales tax rate.

“It’s little things like that that makes it cost a little more to live here,” Stark said.

But U. S. Postal Service officials said the chances of a new ZIP code for Oak Park are about, well, zip.

They say ZIP codes were intended only to speed mail delivery and that the Post Office isn’t responsible for any other uses companies have found for them.

“We never intended for insurance companies to set rates based on ZIP codes, yet they’re trying to put the onus on the Post Office to change it,” said Agoura Hills Postmaster Jules Hershfeld.

“Why should the Post Office have the financial burden of changing that?”

Hershfeld said Oak Park may rate its own ZIP code when the 91301 area reaches capacity.

But another official said that won’t happen for several years.

Meanwhile, residents of Oak Park continue to chronicle their ZIP code zingers.

“Oak Park really needs some identity,” said 23-year resident Sherry Kirsch.

“I hope when we get big enough we can have our own ZIP code.”