City Wants to Go From Zero to ZIP With Its Identity

SIGNAL HILL —  They may be just a few numbers on an envelope, but to folks in Signal Hill, they could increase community pride, clear up confusion, and possibly even bring more money to the city.

The tiny enclave surrounded by Long Beach wants its own ZIP code.

If the World Trade Center complex in Long Beach has two of them, the city of Signal Hill--population 8,660--should have at least one, residents figure.

Now, after hearing years of grumbling by residents, the U.S. Postal Service is considering a request to give the city a separate ZIP code. A decision is likely within the month, said Long Beach Postmaster Ed Jenkins, but Signal Hill officials say they aren’t holding their breath.

The last time the city had its own post office was in the early 1920s. It operated out of a grocery store at Burnett Street and California Avenue and the butcher’s wife was the postmistress, Councilwoman Sara Hanlon said.

Signal Hill, rich in oil lore, became a city in 1924. Landowners, some of whom had leased their properties to oil companies, decided to incorporate to avoid paying taxes on barrels of oil to nearby Long Beach.

Eventually, Long Beach annexed the land surrounding what is now Signal Hill, making the 2.2-square-mile city an island within the state’s fifth-largest city.

Today, Signal Hill has its own Police Department and recreation programs and provides other city services.

But the city shares three ZIP codes--90804, 90806 and 90807--with Long Beach, and each one is based in a separate Long Beach post office.

“When I have to go get my mail, I have to go to Pacific Avenue. That’s way out of our area,” said Councilman Richard Ceccia, who lives several miles from the post office.

For a long time, the Postal Service insisted that all mail to Signal Hill residents be addressed, “City of Signal Hill, Long Beach, Ca.” After repeated requests from Signal Hill residents, postal officials decided that the Long Beach reference could be dropped, said Jon Shull, assistant to the city manager.

“It’s very much a kind of belittling of the city,” Shull said.

The multiple shared ZIP codes, combined with the irregular boundaries between the two cities, also can be confusing.

Occasionally, mail sent by city officials to residents is returned, marked as undeliverable because there is “No such number or street in Long Beach, Ca.”

“There are residents of Signal Hill who . . . think they live in Long Beach,” Shull said. “Some people think Signal Hill is a community in Long Beach.”

Vicki Baker, Signal Hill finance director, said that some residents first realize they’re living in Signal Hill when they receive a water bill from the city. “We’ve actually had them argue with our water clerk that they live in Long Beach,” she said.

Then, there’s the matter of money.

“Some businesses don’t realize they’ve moved to Signal Hill and we lose their taxes to Long Beach,” said Mayor Carol Churchill. The mayor and other officials said they could not estimate how much revenue has been lost as a result of such confusion.

Baker said she sometimes finds it hard to believe “that a business doesn’t know where it is. But that’s what they say.”

Signal Hill is not alone among Southeast cities in its quest. Cerritos has a post office, but shares its ZIP code with Artesia.

“We got a post office six or seven years ago. We were absolutely stunned we weren’t getting our own ZIP code,” Cerritos Mayor John F. Crawley said.

Instead, only those customers who rent boxes at the Cerritos Post Office have a Cerritos ZIP code: 90703. Everyone else shares 90701 with Artesia and much of the mail comes addressed to Artesia instead of Cerritos.

There are no studies under way to give Cerritos its own ZIP code, said Artesia Postmaster Lou Dietrich.

Crawley said he was frustrated “with the bureaucracy of the post office” and has enlisted the aid of Sen. Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim).