Oak Park Residents Seek Own ZIP Code : Mail: Activists are hopeful that they may finally get five digits apart from Agoura Hills. It’s a matter of identity--and insurance rate savings--they say.

They have been trying unsuccessfully for years to convince the U. S. Postal Service that they shouldn’t share a ZIP code with Agoura Hills, but now Oak Park residents have a glimmer of hope that they might someday have five digits to call their own.

The unincorporated community of nearly 15,000 in eastern Ventura County now shares the 91301 ZIP code with Agoura Hills in Los Angeles County, an arrangement that residents say costs them more than just their identity.

Their ZIP code request recently passed two of three Postal Service hurdles toward approval, winning endorsements from local and state administrators. Now it has been submitted to federal authorities for final approval.

“At the local level, we have endorsed the concept of a (separate) 913 ZIP code for Oak Park,” said Terri Bouffiou, a spokeswoman for the Postal Service.

Bouffiou said she did not know how long the request would take at the national level, but that the outlook for final approval is positive because the change would probably have little financial impact.

However, she said, the request could still encounter some problems because it is not based on improving mail service, but on issues of community identity--traditionally not a topic that the post office tackles.

Oak Park residents have lobbied for a ZIP code of their own for nearly 20 years.

In their dogged pursuit of the elusive five numbers, they have tugged demandingly on the sleeves of many local politicians, perhaps most persistently on that of Supervisor Maria VanderKolk, who declares the Oak Park ZIP code battle “a major frustration” of her term.

Why do Oak Park residents care so much about a seemingly benign bureaucratic designation that lumps them with a portion of the San Fernando Valley?

The answer is largely financial. Residents say they continually fight to persuade insurers that they should be allowed to pay lower, Ventura County rates on health, car and home insurance, even though their ZIP code appears to place them in Los Angeles County.

“It costs Oak Park a lot of money to be associated with Agoura Hills,” said Ron Stark, a member of the Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council. “We don’t get the benefit of living in Ventura County.”

Resident Diane Milavetz recalled the time eight years ago that her health insurance company sent her a letter accusing her of falsifying her address.

“They wrote me a letter saying how I had lied, cheated and owed them extra money,” she said. “It was pretty nasty.”

Now, whether she is headed to the Department of Motor Vehicles or an insurance agent, Milavetz makes a point of carrying with her a copy of her property tax bill and her voter registration card--proof that she really does live in Ventura County.

Ordering from catalogues is another problem: Many companies assess sales tax based on ZIP codes. So a Father’s Day sweater ordered by an Oak Park resident might be taxed at the Los Angeles County rate of 8 1/4% instead of the Ventura County rate of 7 1/4%.

VanderKolk’s office inherited the problem when she was elected in 1990. Her office won one concession from the post office in April, 1991, when officials said Oak Park residents could use Oak Park 91301 as their return address, rather than Agoura 91301.

VanderKolk aide Lenora Kirby said she started working on “the ZIP code caper” in 1991. “(The post office) said, ‘You can now use the name Oak Park--that’s it,’ ” she said. “I was pretty thrilled about that.”

But the problems associated with sharing the Los Angeles County ZIP code continued, and residents asked again for some action. VanderKolk went to Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), who began representing the community after congressional district lines were redrawn in 1992. He agreed to back the request.

A year ago, a letter signed by both Beilenson and VanderKolk was sent to postal officials requesting the change.

Both Ross and Stark said they are happy to have Beilenson on their side, but insist that the issue should have been addressed at a county level first by VanderKolk. The supervisor, they say, should have asked her colleagues on the board to adopt a resolution supporting the request.

But Kirby said VanderKolk would have introduced the matter to county supervisors had she thought that it would have done any good. “We would have done it in five minutes,” Kirby said. “Having a ZIP code is a federal issue. We went as far as we could at a local level.”

Ross said he has documents from the post office recommending that the request be handled first by local government--in the unincorporated community’s case, the Board of Supervisors.

“I have confidence that if (Beilenson’s) office is really pushing for it that it will happen,” Ross said. “I just feel bad about burdening him with the effort.”

But Bouffiou said a ZIP code request does not need to come from the Board of Supervisors.

“It makes no difference whether a congressman or a local citizen or the chamber of commerce makes the request,” she said.

Beilenson aide Diane Kinzer Brown said the congressman was happy to take on the issue. “We felt it was a reasonable request or we wouldn’t have taken the action,” she said.

VanderKolk said she is tired of being attacked at Municipal Advisory Council meetings about the issue. “I have never in my life been so frustrated over an issue,” she said. “A letter from Tony (Beilenson) and myself is the best thing we could do.”

Bouffiou said the post office has determined that giving Oak Park a ZIP code would be relatively inexpensive, as long as it begins with 913 and not 930, as do most Ventura County ZIP codes. Envelopes with ZIP codes beginning with 930 go to Santa Barbara to be sorted, and the expense of shifting Oak Park’s mail from the San Fernando Valley to Santa Barbara would be considerable.

“Those numbers really do mean something to us,” Bouffiou said. “They’re not just arbitrary and capricious. They weren’t set up on the lines of how insurance rates should be established. We need them to create efficient mail processing.”

She said that if the request is approved by federal authorities, the Postal Service would then survey Oak Park residents to make sure that the majority of them really want a new ZIP code.

“It has turned out before that a chamber of commerce has requested a change and that the community has said they don’t want it,” Bouffiou said. “They don’t want to learn new numbers or get new stationery and checks printed. People are resistant to change.”

Ross said he thought that most residents would embrace the change. “I don’t think you can get 100% agreement on anything, but I think a majority of the people in the community would approve it.”