Some Wisconsin Communities Say They Have Too Many ZIP Codes
The Village of Somers has 14 different ZIP codes. Congress may take action.
Mailbox. Photo by slgckgc. (CC BY 2.0)
A Wisconsin village with 14 different ZIP codes has pushed for years to get that narrowed down to a single, five-digit number. Now, federal legislation to require unique ZIP codes for the village of Somers and four other communities in the dairy state has Congress’ attention.
There are around 10,000 residents living in the Kenosha County village of Somers, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it based on their myriad mailing addresses. That’s because for around 3,200 of them, their addresses list them as living in either Racine, Pleasant Prairie, Bristol, Caledonia, Sturtevant, Kenosha or Union Grove.
Somers Village Administrator Jason Peters told WPR he doesn’t know how it happened, but it causes real issues for residents and the local government. For example, he said some residents wind up paying higher premiums for home and auto insurance because their addresses list them as residents of larger, neighboring cities.
Peters said the village also loses out on money from vehicle registration fees because of the ZIP code confusion.
“We’ve got a screen in our (village hall) lobby that says, when you go and register your car, to make sure that even though your address says Kenosha, that you put Somers down, because when they see this that it’s registered in the city of Kenosha or city of Racine, we lose out on those vehicles,” Peters said.
The village even had to rename a road after packages were being sent to Racine instead of Somers, according to Peters, because addresses were identical in both places.
In 2022, Peters said, the village applied for what’s called a ZIP code boundary review process with the U.S. Postal Service. When a community makes a request for such a review, the U.S. Postal Service has 60 days to respond. Peters said it took two years to get a response, which came in November. The village’s request was denied.
The village plans to file an appeal with the USPS, he said. If that’s denied they’ll have to wait 10 years to try again.
Over the last two years, Somers, the Village of Caledonia, City of Franklin, City of Greenfield and Town of Mount Pleasant got involved with a lobbying effort Peters calls the National ZIP Code Coalition.
In June, the lobbying resulted in a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to force the post office to designate unique ZIP codes for the Wisconsin communities and dozens of others across the nation. U.S. Rep Bryan Steil, R-Janesville, was one of the sponsors of the bill, and on Dec. 11, he issued a statement about its passage in the House.
“This commonsense legislation instructs USPS to simplify and modernize these boundaries, saving many Wisconsin residents from needless headaches,” Steil said. “We took a step forward today to solve this issue by passing this bill in the House, and I look forward to its consideration in the Senate.”
Peters said he doesn’t know what the odds are of the ZIP code bill being passed by the U.S. Senate, but he and his fellow local government leaders from Wisconsin didn’t expect the legislation to get as far as it did.
“So we’re cautiously optimistic that we can get it done in the 119th Congress,” Peters said.
Some Wisconsin communities say they have too many ZIP codes. Congress might step in. was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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I don’t get what they’re arguing for? On one hand they say there’s too many zip codes for such small areas. But on the other hand they don’t like being lumped together with the “wrong” thing.
So how is consolidating zip codes going to resolve the lumping issue?
Colin, maybe seeing this on a map will make it easier to understand. Right now, Somers is split between a bunch of zip codes each of which is mostly outside of Somers. They are trying to get the Village of Somers assigned to a single zip code instead. You can see this here: https://maps.huge.info/zip.htm
When I lived in Wauwatosa on a boundary street (60th) I had a Milwaukee zip code. Now that I live in Milwaukee two blocks from the divide (Howard Ave), I have a Greenfield post office.
Upper East Side of Milwaukee has a Shorewood ZIP.
Still baffled on this. It sounds like what they really want is to redistrict the zip codes so that they line up with modern city/town/village maps. That would require both consolidation and splitting in order to achieve.
Whatever it is I don’t see it happening in this or the next legislative sessions.
Remember, ZIP codes are set and administered by the USPS to suit their organization and locations. Municipal boundaries are are only a secondary or tertiary consideration. Congress still has the power to direct the USPS to do certain things, but it functions as a stand-alone corporation, not a government agency.
Also recall that the ZIP code scheme was initially set-up in the early 60s before urban sprawl, annexations, etc.- hence places like Sommers (in its modern incarnation) having multiple “legacy” zip codes.