ARLETA : Signatures Collected in ZIP Code Drive

In the latest push in a 10-year effort to convince the U.S. Postal Service that their community should have a ZIP code separate from neighboring Pacoima, members of the Arleta Chamber of Commerce and Residents Assn. have gathered more than 5,000 signatures to protest a decision by the Postal Service’s Van Nuys district office to deny such a change.

But according to a spokeswoman for the Postal Service in Washington, D.C., the petition is unlikely to have any effect on the request process. “If a request gets turned down by the local people, the community can formally appeal the decision to headquarters,” said spokeswoman Sandra Harding. “A petition is not going to do them any good.”

Chamber President Patrick Vincent, who helped organize the petition drive, said the Postal Service did not mention the appeals process in its August denial letter. He said chamber members intend to hand-deliver the petitions to the district office anyway.

“I don’t think that’s any way for a governmental business to respond to a community,” Vincent said. “We didn’t know anything about it.”

Vincent said the effort to change Arleta’s ZIP code back to 91332--the one it held in the 1960s before it shared 91331 with Pacoima--is driven by a strong sense of community identity and the belief that commerce will fare better with a separate zip code.

Chamber member John Maxon, who has been working on the issue for more than 10 years, said community response to the petition was overwhelmingly positive.