Northampton Residents Seek Pointless Postal Approval

Can you really be a town without a zip code? Uhh, of course. Who the hell would think a way of categorizing mail has anything to do with the identity of a town?

Bucks County residents, that’s who! The citizens of Northampton are asking the post office for a new zip code so they may have an identity via a zip code while inconveniencing other people and costing the post office a lot of money.

The majority of Northampton residents have a zip code in — gasp! — Southampton. The others have Ivyland or Warminster zip codes, meaning their township is rendered pointless when sending letters, which nobody does anymore anyway. “I think the time has come,” Northampton Supervisor George Komelasky said. “We’re a fairly established community, we deserve our own identity.”

He continued: “Have we lost our identity? Should we have something singular for the community?” Indeed!

The post office responded with a clear “Uh, what?”

“With so much thought and effort going into establishing our delivery boundaries, constant changes will result in the very time consuming and expensive task of realignments,” [USPS communications program specialist, whatever that is, Cathy] Yarosky said in an e-mail.

Yarosky said it would be “far too costly” to adjust ZIP codes for the sake of community identity.

She said ZIP codes can’t be added or changed based on municipal tax collections, real estate, mail order payments or other reasons that are not determined by mail volume, delivery area size and geographical location.

Northampton residents aren’t the only ones with way too much time on their hands. Both Yardley and Lower Makefield are hoping to achieve a coveted new zip code and cost the post office lots of money in order to have the significance of five new digits as well as possibly losing lots of mail during the changeover.

Residents want township to deliver new ZIP [Bucks County Courier Times]