Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 5, 2016)
PAGE A14, KEIZERTIMES, AUGUST 5, 2016 ZIP, continued from Page A1 “(The USPS) put it in at State Street and Keizer lost out.” She and Post are hoping to draft a resolution that can be put before the Oregon Legislature next year. They are modeling the effort on a campaign launched in Tigard in April 2015. Tigard's primary zip codes most frequently list the city as part of Portland, the same way 97303 lists Keizer as part of Salem. The Legislature approved a bill urging Congress and the USPS to reclassify the Tigard ZIP codes. However, the bill has no power on its own, and any change requires federal approval. To date, both the 97223 and 97224 ZIP codes are still associated with Portland in a Google search. Parsons has already emailed a contact at USPS, but has yet to receive a reply. “We are still waiting, but (Rep. Post and I) want to put together a plan for finguring out who will listen to us. We'd love to just sit down and have the conversation,” Parsons said. It remains to be seen whether a dedicated ZIP code would result in the return of the self-service postage machine, but Parsons would like to see that be part of the conversation. ZIP codes were established in 1963 to mainstream mail sorting and allow the USPS to cope with the increasing volumes of mail. The first number in the code represents a general geographic area of the nation, “0” in the east, moving to “9” in the west. The next two numbers represent regional areas, and the final two identify specific post offices. However, since their origin, ZIP codes have become a shorthand way to identify population segments according to demographics (incomes, ages, ethnicities, etc.). Parsons sees a dedicated ZIP code as one more way to attract businesses to the Keizer – a new grocery store, for example. “We're lumped with northeast Salem and when you look at the cost of living or the income range for residents, we don't know how much of that is true. I think it's very skewed,” Parsons said. “We want Keizer to have its own ZIP code so that, when businesses pull demographics, it's going to be more accurate in terms of what our needs are.” KT owner honored by ONPA Les Zaitz, a partner in the Keizertimes and senior inves- tigative reporter for The Or- egonian, has been awarded the state newspaper association’s highest honor. The Oregon State News- paper Publishers Associa- tion presented Zaitz with the Amos Voorhies Award, which recognizes “outstand- ing journalistic achievement in the public interest.” He is the first reporter to receive the award, which dates to 1938 and was last given out in 2009. He has been a partner in the Keizertimes since 1987 and has worked for The Or- egonian/OregonLive for 26 years. His family also owns the Malheur Enterprise, a weekly newspaper based in Vale. “In a world of shrink- ing newspaper budgets that threaten the future of inves- tigative reporting, Les Zaitz is continuing his decades- old tradition of painstakingly thorough and fair investiga- tions and reporting about major issues of public interest to Oregonians,” the associa- tion said in its citation. Zaitz, a two-time Pulit- zer finalist, has investigated public corruption, terrorism, drug cartels, cults and corpo- rate fraud. He is married to Scotta Callister, publisher of the Malheur Enterprise. His brother Lyndon is publisher of the Keizertimes.