SWANZEY — It has been tried before, but selectboard Chairman Bill Hutwelker hopes this is the year Congress ends the confusion and approves legislation requiring the U.S. Postal Service to designate a single, unique ZIP code for all of Swanzey.
On Monday, the U.S. House passed and sent to the Senate a bipartisan bill that would do this for 74 communities across the country, including Swanzey.
North Swanzey is a fully incorporated part of town, but doesn’t share Swanzey’s primary ZIP code of 03446. Instead, it shares the 03431 ZIP code used by Keene, Roxbury and Surry.
“This causes problems with anything having to do with GPS and obviously causes some issues with mailings with people in Keene receiving something that should have gone to Swanzey and vice versa, especially when some street names are similar,” Hutwelker said.
There is also the potential that because of ZIP code and GPS confusion, an emergency medical response could go to the wrong town, he added.
There have been past unsuccessful legislative attempts to require the Postal Service to make the change, but Hutwelker hopes this year’s legislation will cross the finish line because it also takes in 73 other communities.
Also, Republicans, who hold majorities in the U.S. House and Senate, seem to favor the bill, which is sponsored by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. Fourteen Colorado communities would get unique ZIP codes under the legislation.
On Monday, the measure was supported by 203 Republicans and 75 Democrats. A total of 121 Democrats were in opposition. No Republicans voted against it.
U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander, D-N.H., supports the bill.
“It’s past time that the residents of Swanzey, New Hampshire, had their own zip code to simplify mail delivery, streamline response times for EMS, and cut down on needless confusion,” Goodlander, whose district takes in the Monadnock Region, said in a news release Tuesday.
“I was proud to help pass this commonsense legislation out of the House of Representatives and deliver for the people of Swanzey.”
Hutwelker said the town, which has more than 7,000 residents, has been trying to get a single, unique ZIP code for almost 10 years. It first appealed, without success, for the U.S. Postal Service to make the change.
Several attempts to get this done on Capitol Hill in recent years also were not successful.
In addition to New Hampshire and Colorado, communities in California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming are also included in the bill.
https://www.keenesentinel.com/news/local/swanzey-nh-zip-code
