Ohio city takes ZIP Code fight to Congress after decades of addressing confusion
GREEN, Ohio - It’s not easy being Green, when even your city hall’s mailing address says it’s in another town.
The fast-growing community in southern Summit County has spent decades stuck in a ZIP Code jam whose consequences range from lost tax revenue to delayed emergency service responses.
The problems stem from the fact that the city’s physical addresses are split between zip codes that officially belong to Uniontown, Akron, North Canton and Clinton, with only a set of post office boxes having a zip code designated as Green.
Green’s city hall has an address in Uniontown, in Stark County. Akron-Canton Regional Airport, though located in Green, has an address in Stark County’s North Canton. The MAPS Air Museum of aviation history’s address also has a North Canton address, even though it’s actually in Green.
It’s the same situation for other city landmarks, including popular restaurants like Twisted Olive, which is labeled as North Canton, and The Industry, which has an Akron address,
After years of unsuccessfully asking the U.S. Postal Service to address their address problem, Green officials want Congress to pass legislation that would assign the community a distinct ZIP Code.
“It hits us in the pocketbook,” says Green’s mayor, Rocco P. Yeargin. “When new businesess come to town, they don’t realize they are in the city. They are sending their tax withholding to the wrong city. Every year, we hire an entity to go after those dollars.”
In 2023 alone, Green identified $614,000 in unpaid taxes attributed to that problem.
Addressing chaos
The U.S. Postal Service instituted the Zone Improvement Plan (ZIP) Code system in 1963 as a way to improve its mail sorting and delivery system. When the ZIP Codes were first assigned to Green, it was a township that consisted of farmland, a few businesses and fewer than 10,000 residents, its political representatives say.
It’s now the fastest growing city in Summit County, with nearly triple its former population and more than 1,200 businesses. Multiple ZIP Codes confuse those businesses’ customers and suppliers about their location, in addition to creating sales tax mistakes.
Yeargin says the ZIP Code problems also delay emergency response when ambulance and fire services are confused about where they need to go. He says it’s also hard to administer utilities, such as electric, gas, and trash removal over the multiple ZIP Codes.
When Green negotiates discounted rates for gas and electric service for its residents, a percentage usually get left out because the utility companies don’t know they’re in Green, he says.
Commercial realtor Tim Bishman says the ZIP Code issue has caused trouble for businesses seeking to open franchises in Green, who get turned down because other franchisees operate in that ZIP Code, even though they’re not in the same town.
Residential realtor Nancy Bartlebaugh recalls that a new neighbor who moved to Green from out of state thought she was buying a house in Uniontown, and learned otherwise when she received a tax bill from Green and went to its city hall to protest.
Because of the ZIP Code confusion, she says “there’s just a little bit more work involved when people are trying to find a sale in Green on their own.”
“It would take away a lot of confusion if there was one zip code,” says Bartlebaugh.
Yeargin recalls seeing a physical therapist while recovering from arm surgery who mistakenly believed they were in Uniontown because of the ZIP Code issue. The therapist had been working in the area for two years without realizing the office was actually located in the city of Green.
“It is something our community has been wrestling with for a long time,” says Yeargin. “We’d love to get it resolved.”
Congressional solution
After countless examples of confusion and decades of requests to the postal service yielding little response beyond “We’re looking at it,” Yeargin said Green has joined dozens of cities across the country with similar problems who want Congress to solve them.
U.S. Rep. Emilia Sykes, an Akron Democrat co-sponsored bipartisan legislation that passed the U.S. House of Representatives in July. It would require the post office to designate single, unique zip codes for each of the communities cited in the bill, including Green, the only Ohio entity on the list.
In a speech on the U.S. House of Representatives floor, Sykes said that Green’s operation under multiple ZIP Codes “has led to confusion, lost tax dollars and a diminished sense of unity among residents and businesses.”
“This is an issue that community leaders, residents, businesses and more have expressed their overwhelming support for, a ZIP Code for the city of Green,” said Sykes. “They have attempted to work with the USPS with no avail. And so now we are here with legislation.”
Postal Service Opposition
The U.S. Postal Service opposes the legislation. It released a statement that said the new ZIP Codes for Green and the other communities would “significantly degrade mail service in the affected communities and cause pervasive, chaotic service disruptions in the communities affected, and some around them.”
“Legislated ZIP Codes are almost never related to improved mail delivery, and are instead inspired by third-party reliance on ZIP Codes, such as for tax collection, insurance rates, community identity, or other non-mail considerations,” the statement said.
It explained that local ZIP Codes are generally based on the physical postal facility—often the local post office—that houses the delivery unit where letter carriers deliver from.
It said changing a ZIP Code by legislation without Postal Service analysis may change which facility customers’ mail goes to before being delivered. ZIP Code changes may also require different transportation and truck routing at significant additional cost, as well as altering entire routes and facilities for letter carriers, the postal service statement said.
It predicted changes called for in the bill would add significant operational costs and complications to the self-financed Postal Service at a time when strong pressure exists for the Postal Service to financially break even.
The Postal Service says it can work with local communities to see if there’s a way to resolve ZIP Code confusion.
Yeargin hasn’t been satisfied with their efforts.
When Green officials learned that legislation was going through Congress to provide similarly affected communities with ZIP Codes, they approached Sykes so they could be included.
The legislation now heads to the Senate, where the coalition of cities is considering hiring a lobbyist to help make their case. Yeargin has reached out to Ohio Senators Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted’s offices for support.
As Green continues to grow and develop, Yeargin hopes the congressional legislation will finally resolve a problem that has plagued his community for a quarter-century.
“We are hoping all the stars will align and we’ll get a good resolution,” he said.
By: Sabrina Eaton
Source: Cleveland.com