BUCKLAND or is it SHELBURNE FALLS? — For years, Buckland’s identity as a town has been overshadowed by its “Shelburne Falls” side — and by a confusing mix of ZIP codes.
Now town officials are hoping to find a solution to this quandary, especially since state agencies that calculate town revenues, median income and other statistics are relying on ZIP code-based data.
On the town’s website, the Board of Selectmen is asking residents to comment on the ZIP code issue, which will be discussed tonight and at a Jan. 24 selectmen’s meeting. Also, a draft letter detailing the town’s problems is on the town’s website, and a final version is to be sent to David Mastroianni, Connecticut Valley District Manager of the Postal Service.
Buckland is served by four ZIP codes, but only about 300 residents are able to use the word “Buckland” in their actual mailing addresses — because they are the only residents with the 01338 Buckland ZIP code. Most other Buckland residents must use “Ashfield 01330,” “Charlemont 01339,” or “Shelburne Falls 01370” in their mailing addresses because their mail is routed through those neighboring post offices. And some have no ZIP code at all, according to Selectman Dena Willmore.
“It is such a mess,” Willmore said. “We have four ZIP codes and we have areas in Buckland that have no ZIP code. It’s like a black hole,” she said. Those without ZIP codes are given free post office boxes in the Buckland Post Office on Upper Street. Willmore, who has lived in town 30 years, said it took 15 years before she was assigned a ZIP code on Maynard Hill Road. Other “black holes” are on rural Charlemont Road, from Avery Road to Upper Street, and along Orchutt Hill Road. Those without ZIP codes get no mail delivery, but instead are given free post office boxes at the Buckland Post Office on Upper Road.
“The whole thing doesn’t make any sense,” Willmore said. “It was all driven by Rural Routes. The Post Office will say that ZIP codes are there for the convenience of the Post Office. The fact that ZIP codes are being used for other reasons by other agencies are of no interest to them.”
Because most Buckland addresses have been assigned the “Shelburne Falls 01370” ZIP code, local people and even state agencies don’t always recognize where these people actually live. For years, this has created municipal headaches for Buckland and Shelburne assessors offices and town clerks.
“Shelburne Falls isn’t even a town,” Buckland Town Clerk Janice Purington said. “I just want people to realize they live in Buckland.”
Shelburne Falls is a village that straddles two towns, part in Buckland and part in Shelburne, which are on opposite sides of the Deerfield River.
Purington’s family lives on Clesson Brook Road, within the Charlemont 01339 mailing address, but they’ve rented a post office box at the nearby Buckland Post Office so that their “Purington Maple” customers could find them. “People would see the mailing address and look for us in Charlemont,” the town clerk said.
“I get a lot of people that come in to register to vote, and I explain to them that the first line — ‘Where do you live?’ — has to be Buckland. And when they’re asked for their mail address, they have to put Buckland, or Ashfield, or Charlemont or Shelburne Falls.”
“There are two addresses on the census form,” she continued. “The first one is their residential address (Buckland) and the second is their mailing address.”
When new moms from Buckland end up putting “Shelburne Falls” on their infants’ birth certificates, the town clerk has to write affidavits of correction, indicating Buckland as the hometown.
Veterinarians are supposed to contact town clerks with rabies vaccination data on dogs owned by town residents. Purington said Shelburne Town Clerk Joseph Judd ends up having to weed through his records to find dogs belonging to Buckland residents who have the Shelburne Falls ZIP code.
Even Mohawk Trail Regional High School, located in Buckland, and the Buckland Town Hall have mailing addresses as “Shelburne Falls.”
But this fall, the ZIP code dilemma made voter registration much more complicated. According to Purington, several Buckland voters who registered as Shelburne Falls residents through the Registry of Motor Vehicles weren’t showing up on Buckland’s registered voter list, when the voters checked their status online. Many couldn’t find their own names when they typed — because they had to type in both “Buckland” and the Buckland ZIP code (01338) to see the Buckland voters.
Selectmen are sending a letter to postal officials that details the needless bureaucracy, tax mistakes and revenue errors calculated by some state agencies based on ZIP code fallacies. But they also want to hear from residents who have had trouble getting their mail, registering to vote or who have faced other obstacles to getting their mail.
Here are some ways in which the ZIP code mix-up hinders Buckland:
Municipal mail delivery. The Buckland Town Hall is in Shelburne Falls, but Town Clerk Janice Purington must maintain a separate P.O. Box at the Buckland Post Office (where the “Buckland” 01338 ZIP code has been assigned), because “many federal and state agencies send official mail to each town clerk by town, and she would fail to receive this correspondence otherwise.”
Official town mail to residents, including street lists, must be sent to four different town ZIP codes — Shelburne Falls, Buckland, Ashfield and Charlemont — with no guarantee that all will receive them.
Residents who used their Shelburne Falls mailing address to register to vote through the Registry of Motor Vehicles have shown up to vote, only to find they have not been properly registered. Also, some residents who called to check on their voter registration this year were unable to find themselves listed — because they were listed under the “Buckland” 01338 ZIP code, which they did not use and were unfamiliar with.
Buckland town government routinely receives Shelburne government mail, and Shelburne government, based in Memorial Hall just a few blocks away, often receives Buckland’s.
Town officials are questioning state calculations for the town’s educational “minimum contribution” requirement, because the calculation is based on the income level and property valuation for the relatively few people assigned to the 01338 ZIP code. Those homes tend to have higher property values and the residents are believed to have higher income levels than those living in the smaller homes and apartments within the “Shelburne Falls” ZIP code. “This has meant that approximately 10 percent of the town’s higher property assessments has been extrapolated to represent 100 percent of the town’s value — and that the Shelburne Falls ZIP code information, which represents close to 80 percent of (Buckland’s) value has been used to set lower values for the town of Shelburne,” selectmen said in their draft letter.
Also, when the town asked the state Department of Revenue for an estimate of how much revenue the town would generate through a meals tax, the DOR reported there were no restaurants in Buckland. The report apparently credited all Buckland’s eateries to Shelburne — because all lie within the 01370 ZIP code. There are a half dozen eateries in Buckland.
Purington would like to see the entire town be reassigned to one ZIP code, 01338, with the Buckland Post Office handling delivery of all residents’ mail.
“I’m sure that some people are going to be upset if they have to change (their mailing address) to Buckland. But it should have been Buckland in the first place,” Purington says.
“Ideally, every town should have all its residents under one ZIP code,” Willmore agrees. “But I think the ability to have that happen is low. Asking for all our Buckland residents to be under one ZIP code is unrealistic.”
Willmore said the town would like to find a solution that the Post Office “would approve and actually execute.”