Addison, Texas. A town divided. Divided by zip codes.
But there's a possible change coming, a once in 10-year chance to unite Addison.
Most of Addison is in the 75001 zip code. A small part in the south east section is in 75254, a Dallas code. It wouldn't be a problem, but those in 75254 who LIVE in Addison, and the businesses there, have to use Dallas as the city for their mailing address. And it gets confusing.
The Addison Town Hall's mailing address is 5300 Belt Line Rd., Dallas, TX 75254. Have you ever heard of a city hall with a mailing address in another city?
Mail delivery will be faster for the east Addison folks if they join 75001 because they'll be served by the state-of-the-art Addison post office on Airport Parkway rather than the Dallas post office on Noel Road, south of Spring Valley. The 75254 mail gets sent through a large postal facility near downtown Dallas before being delivered.
Another advantage: some of the businesses in Addison with a Dallas address mistakenly send taxes to Dallas. Unifying under one zip code and changing the mailing address to Addison will grow the Addison tax base and remove the inter-jurisdicitonal confusion.
If you don't know you're in Addison and you call for emergency services like police or fire, you'll get re-routed back to Addison public safety officers and delays could be deadly.
Under one zip code, people who live NEAR Addison but not in it won't be confused as to where they live. You're either in the best place to live in the metroplex, or you're not. No more fudging the lines.
And the post office will make this change very easy for those affected. The zip code change would go into effect on July 15, 2015 and there will be a full year's implementation period. You wouldn't even have to send the post office a change of address notice.
So how can this change come about? The post office mailed a "survey" on 2/2/15 to each home and business in Addison in 75254. These surveys (they're more like ballots) should be arriving this week. The survey question is very simple and requires either a Yes or No response that should be sent back to the post office by March 6th in a postage paid envelope. "Yes" indicates that you're in favor of changing to 75001. The measure passes with 50% +1 vote. This process can happen no more often that once every 10 years, so it's important to get this done now.
There are 943 different mailing addresses in Addison that have the Dallas 75254 mailing address. This includes 255 residences and 688 business, including restaurants and hotels.
Let's unify Addison! 75001 for all!
