|
|
 |
Friday
March 19, 2010 Since 1922 |
Zip fixes
By Wanda Garner Cash
Baytown Sun Published November 27, 2005 It seems logical, even obvious, that a town should have its own zip code. Yet the U.S. Postal Service continues to deny that significant identity to our neighbors in Mont Belvieu and Beach City.
Those towns are forced to share the postal identifier with Baytown, even though they lie in a different county. It’s a bureaucratic disgrace that not only chafes community pride but also defies common sense and undermines official logistics with costly confusion.
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, whose district includes parts of all three cities, started working on this problem in August. Back then, complaints arose because of commercial interests tired of being lost within the Baytown business mix.
In September, the problem got more personal when two hurricanes walloped our region, first with evacuee concerns and then with our own suffering and property damage.
As relief agencies and insurance companies attempted to respond, their timely efforts were thwarted by addresses lumped into one crowded zip code, no matter whether the disaster victim lived on one of the state streets in Baytown, in the far reaches on Mont Belvieu or on wind-swept Trinity Bay.
Aside from the obvious confusion with FEMA claims, the omni-zip also muddles mundane matters, such as jury summons, property appraisals, insurance rates and census demographics.
Incredibly, postal authorities exclaim that no one has ever complained about the all-encompassing good ol’ 77520. A spokesman said the postal system would ‘certainly’ look into the situation.
While it’s true that zip codes meander randomly without necessarily respecting geographical boundaries, it’s also true that they change according to meet evolving residential and business demands.
And in Beach City, evolution has fomented a resolution wherein aldermen are emphatic that their community has evolved to the point of deserving its own zip code. We think so, too. And that’s a ditto for Mont Belvieu.
Zip codes, established in 1963, are an acronym for ‘zone improvement plan.’ The post office promoted the 5-digit code using the cartoon character Mr. ZIP as a literal and figurative to send mail faster and more efficiently.
Old Zippy has retired, apparently weary of the postal shenanigans that send local mail into Houston for processing before delivering it across the street and puts Beach City and Mont Belvieu in Baytown.
In our misery we might take small comfort to note that other areas suffer a similar postal plight. Until recently, certain suburbs in Maryland had to share a zip code with Washington, D.C. And in Arizona, 85 percent of the addresses in Phoenix have the same zip as suburban Scottsdale.
There and here, this poor customer service is mystifying and maddening. And clearly, the current one-zip-fits-all is neither fast nor efficient.
Today’s editorial was written by Wanda Garner Cash, editor and publisher of The Baytown Sun, on behalf of the newspaper’s editorial board.
+ + +
No stamp needed!
Tell the post office your town deserves a
zip code:
USPS: (toll free) 1-800-275-8777
Mont Belvieu: 281-576-2210
Baytown: 281-422-8218
Send an email to www.usps.com. “Contact Us” at the bottom of the page takes you to a complaint form.
Baytown Sun Published November 27, 2005 It seems logical, even obvious, that a town should have its own zip code. Yet the U.S. Postal Service continues to deny that significant identity to our neighbors in Mont Belvieu and Beach City.
Those towns are forced to share the postal identifier with Baytown, even though they lie in a different county. It’s a bureaucratic disgrace that not only chafes community pride but also defies common sense and undermines official logistics with costly confusion.
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, whose district includes parts of all three cities, started working on this problem in August. Back then, complaints arose because of commercial interests tired of being lost within the Baytown business mix.
In September, the problem got more personal when two hurricanes walloped our region, first with evacuee concerns and then with our own suffering and property damage.
As relief agencies and insurance companies attempted to respond, their timely efforts were thwarted by addresses lumped into one crowded zip code, no matter whether the disaster victim lived on one of the state streets in Baytown, in the far reaches on Mont Belvieu or on wind-swept Trinity Bay.
Aside from the obvious confusion with FEMA claims, the omni-zip also muddles mundane matters, such as jury summons, property appraisals, insurance rates and census demographics.
Incredibly, postal authorities exclaim that no one has ever complained about the all-encompassing good ol’ 77520. A spokesman said the postal system would ‘certainly’ look into the situation.
While it’s true that zip codes meander randomly without necessarily respecting geographical boundaries, it’s also true that they change according to meet evolving residential and business demands.
And in Beach City, evolution has fomented a resolution wherein aldermen are emphatic that their community has evolved to the point of deserving its own zip code. We think so, too. And that’s a ditto for Mont Belvieu.
Zip codes, established in 1963, are an acronym for ‘zone improvement plan.’ The post office promoted the 5-digit code using the cartoon character Mr. ZIP as a literal and figurative to send mail faster and more efficiently.
Old Zippy has retired, apparently weary of the postal shenanigans that send local mail into Houston for processing before delivering it across the street and puts Beach City and Mont Belvieu in Baytown.
In our misery we might take small comfort to note that other areas suffer a similar postal plight. Until recently, certain suburbs in Maryland had to share a zip code with Washington, D.C. And in Arizona, 85 percent of the addresses in Phoenix have the same zip as suburban Scottsdale.
There and here, this poor customer service is mystifying and maddening. And clearly, the current one-zip-fits-all is neither fast nor efficient.
Today’s editorial was written by Wanda Garner Cash, editor and publisher of The Baytown Sun, on behalf of the newspaper’s editorial board.
+ + +
No stamp needed!
Tell the post office your town deserves a
zip code:
USPS: (toll free) 1-800-275-8777
Mont Belvieu: 281-576-2210
Baytown: 281-422-8218
Send an email to www.usps.com. “Contact Us” at the bottom of the page takes you to a complaint form.