August Survey Will Determine ZIP Code Change

Diamond Bar residents and businesses with a Walnut ZIP code will decide in August whether to join the rest of the city under the 91765 ZIP code belonging to most of the city.

City officials say postal delays and border confusion is sometimes a result of the split ZIP codes, but the city also loses sales tax income annually from businesses in Diamond Bar's 91789 area.

Diamond Bar City Manager DeStefano said that, in the past five years, $635,000 in sales tax belonging to Diamond Bar has been recovered from Walnut and that Diamond Bar has paid $100,000 to Hinderliter de Lamas & Associates during that time to retrieve the funds.

"If the ZIP code was right, we wouldn't have to spend so much just to collect our money," Councilwoman Carol Herrera said.

The city received written confirmation in March that the United States Postal Service will conduct a survey in Diamond Bar's 91789 area to determine if a majority of residents and businesses approve of the change.

Marsha Roa, the city's public information manager, said that those in the 91789 area would have an 18-month transition window if the switch is approved.

This is the farthest that the city has progressed toward putting all of Diamond Bar under one ZIP code, a problem that Mayor Steve Tye said was "inherited at incorporation" in 1989.

"This survey is great news for the city and the affected residents because it is the farthest in the process that we've gotten in well over a decade," Tye said.

If the change is made, delivery routes to the current 91789 area could be moved from the Walnut Post Office to the Diamond Bar branch as early as summer of 2012.

Cast your vote in favor or against the change at our Facebook poll.