Congressman Vows to Dog Postal Service for Separate Oak Park ZIP Code

After three decades of U.S. Postal Service officials flatly rejecting efforts by Oak Park to get its own ZIP Code, U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman says the time has come to get tough with postal bureaucrats.

Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) said Wednesday that unless postal officials allow Oak Park to break away from the ZIP Code it shares with Agoura Hills, he is ready to draft legislation to allow communities nationwide to secure separate ZIP codes.

Such legislation could face an uphill battle, however. A similar bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) in 1995 didn’t make it out of a House postal subcommittee after it was strongly opposed by post office officials.

Sherman’s district, which stretches into eastern Ventura County, includes Oak Park, an unincorporated community of 15,000.

Oak Park residents have long complained that sharing the 91301 ZIP Code with a city in Los Angeles County has created a confusing situation where they are often charged that county’s higher sales tax rate and experience delayed emergency response from law enforcement, among other things.

Armed with the results of a recent survey that shows Oak Park residents either want a ZIP Code of their own or want to share a ZIP Code with neighboring Thousand Oaks, Sherman is lobbying Postmaster General Marvin Runyon to grant one of the two requests--or else he will proceed with legislation.

Sherman said he is prepared to assemble a coalition of congressional leaders with similar ZIP Code requests from constituents to push for a new law, since there are more than 40,000 unused ZIP Code numbers available.

The saber-rattling has agitated postal bureaucrats, Sherman said. But a recent meeting with Runyon--which Sherman described as the first such high-ranking effort by any of the five congressmen who have represented Oak Park on the ZIP Code matter--resulted in no concessions, he said.

“If we have to go the legislative route, if the post office doesn’t want to give a ZIP Code to Oak Park, I’m willing to get one for everyone,” Sherman said at a media briefing Wednesday at his Conejo Valley office in the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza.

The bill, he said, would encounter major postal opposition. Postal officials have repeatedly refused to grant separate ZIP codes to numerous communities that have requested them on grounds that it would needlessly throw the mail-delivery system into chaos.

“Yes, I believe the postal officials would fight it tooth and nail,” Sherman said. “You would have these postal folks saying this would be the end of Western civilization as we know it.”

Sherman said postal officials contend that Oak Park sharing the 91362 ZIP Code with northeastern Thousand Oaks residents would not be possible. The 10 postal carriers who serve Oak Park would then have to work out of the Thousand Oaks post office, where there is no room for them and their mail-sorting equipment, according to postal officials.

And Sherman said postal officials have told him that granting a separate ZIP Code to Oak Park would set a dangerous national precedent.

Terri Bouffiou, spokesperson for the postal service in Southern California, said Wednesday that ZIP codes serve a specific purpose and cannot be handed out to every community in the country that seeks a separate identity.

“ZIP Codes are for efficient delivery of the mail,” Bouffiou said. “If it was just Oak Park, it wouldn’t be a problem. But what about Porter Ranch in Northridge? They want their own ZIP Code, too, and so do a bunch of other communities in the Valley.

“That really is at the heart of the issue,” Bouffiou added. “We have to protect the integrity of the system so we can get the mail home on time.”

He caught a lot of heat for it in Oak Park, but Sherman’s predecessor, Anthony Beilenson, declined to introduce such ZIP Code legislation, arguing it was destined to fail.

Beilenson instead worked closely with postal officials, and was instrumental in the postal service’s decision to allow smaller communities, such as Oak Park, to write their own community names on their mail instead of the usually larger areas with which they shared ZIP codes, according to Bouffiou.

Sherman concedes that his efforts may not amount to anything. “I’m not stepping up to the plate and pointing to the bleachers,” he said.

But he hopes Oak Park residents will appreciate his trying.

Judging from the response of Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council President Douglas A. Hewitson , who attended Wednesday’s briefing, they will.

“I think Congressman Sherman has an excellent grasp of the issue,” Hewitson said, after complaining that he pays higher auto insurance rates because he is wrongly lumped in with Los Angeles County.

“We have the lowest crime rate in the area. Why should we be paying for high theft rates and accident rates?”