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Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Raminder Sandhu, a distribution clerk at the Sunnyvale library, hand-sorts the mail.
ZIP Code split angers residents
Post office, out of 'ZIP-Plus-Fours,' gets set to launch 94085
By Sam Scott
More than 35 people showed up at City Hall for an emotional debate last month over an unusual boundary dispute: a surprisingly vexing decision about how to cleave central Sunnyvale's ZIP Code in two.
The U.S. Postal Service insists that it is necessary that the 94086 code be split. The decision will come this week after a year-long delay.
A group of affected residents boil at the way the Postal Service has approached the move, fearing the change will affect property values and cause unnecessary hassle.
"I don't want to say 'inept' but I will say 'inefficiently done,'" Sunnyvale resident Dale Kliethermes says.
Kliethermes, like many at the meeting, says his main contention lies with the way the Postal Service is proposing the split. At a December meeting designed by the Postal Service to get public input, held only three days before Christmas, Postal Service representatives highlighted four possible boundaries between the reduced 94086 area and the proposed 94085 zone.
According to three of the four displays at the meeting, more people would find themselves in the new 94085 code than would remain in 94086. Kliethermes wonders why Postal Service officials didn't simply reverse that arrangement, which would force fewer people to change ZIP Codes.
"It's an unnecessary hardship," he says. "The main problem is the way they're going to require more changes than if they just reversed the numbers."
Dean Maeda of the Postal Service says the display maps used at the meeting were not final, but merely showed possible locations for the split. He says the Zip Codes were assigned on the maps only as examples.
"We still haven't finished it yet," he says. "Probably, we'll try to affect the least amount of customers as possible."
Others at the meeting voiced worries about the effect a new Zip Code would have on property values. They said certain Zips, like 94086, connote value.
Mark Burns, chair of the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors, says such worries may have a degree of validity.
"There is a small concern there," he says. "People do equate a certain part of Sunnyvale with 94086 versus 94087 versus 94089."
But he says the effect would pale in comparison to a change in school districts.
Betty Wolfe, a Realtor in Los Gatos, where a new Zip Code was recently created, says buyers taken no notice of Zips.
"I've been in the business for 20 years," she says. "People look at school districts and the type of neighborhood. Zip Codes don't matter at all."
The change could, however, affect insurance rates, as data sorted by Zip Code is figured into risk assessment.
Nick Weintraub, an insurance agent, downplays the chances this would happen. "I highly doubt a change of Zip Codes would make any difference in insurance rates, because the two areas are so close together," he says. "94086 and 94087 carry the same insurance rates, so I highly doubt 94085 would be any different."
Originally, postal officials had penciled-in a split of 94086 for last July. They announced the move in April, touching off angry responses from citizens who felt they had no input on the matter. At the city's request, the move was delayed a year.
The change must take place, Postal Service officials say.
Paul Senior, with the Postal Service, says increasing density within Sunnyvale requires the change. He says 94086 is running out of "Zip Plus Fours," the nine-digit codes that tell machines how to sort the mail. As a result, all mail in 94086 is being hand-sorted.
Whether a mailer uses the full nine-digit Zip or not, each block, high-rise floor, and mass-mailer has a unique nine digit code. Each Zip can only grant so many.
"We are just now running out," Senior says.
Businesses, for example, cannot request business reply mail at this time, because it requires a unique Zip Plus Four, Senior says.
Dan Martin, Sunnyvale's Post Master will make the decision where to draw the new border by month's end. It will then go to DC for final approval and be in affect by July 1.
Dean Maeda says the boundary could wind up being the railroad tracks, Fair Oaks Avenue, Central Expressway, or Mathilda Avenue.
Maeda says that a two-year grace period will follow the decision, during which people can use either Zip Code without problem.
Jill Fine, who works for the Postal Service, says even after the grace period elapses, delivery should be no problem
"Probably 35 to 25 percent of mail comes with wrong the Zip Code, and we deliver that no problem," she says.
Whether that pacifies all the residents in the area remains to be seen.
Ken Young, who attended the meeting, says people may redouble their opposition once the letter comes out notifying the public of the change.
"Wait until you see what happens when they send that letter out saying it's going to be changed," he says. "Then you'll see resistance."
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
