Where is 94404?

Isn’t it funny how you can go along day to day and not think twice about something and then all of a sudden, the level of annoyance just hits you the wrong way? I have lived in Foster City for 20 years, which I know is a pittance compared to some of my fellow residents, and served the community for more than 30 years, and somehow or another it never bothered me in all that time that we share our postal identifier with another community, which basically makes us invisible to the world. So just where in the world is 94404?

My annoyance came to fruition while I was Christmas shopping on-line and placing catalog phone-in-orders this year, probably because I am doing more of it. Everything usually goes well until It comes to divulging my zip code, which as most of you who shop online know identifies the city where you live. Knowing what is coming from the customer service representative, who is usually located in Des Moines, Iowa, or some other locale, I usually try to skirt the issue by proudly announcing I live in a wonderful place named Foster City, California whose zip code is 94404. Unfortunately, this seldom works. The customer service representative will politely insist she needs the zip code first. After a brief moment of silence my reluctance subsides and I grudgingly say "94404.” I hear the five taps on the key board at the other end of the line and then grit my teeth and with anxiety await the customer service representative to say those two annoying words: "San Mateo?”

I used to correct the customer service representative without fail by exclaiming how 94404 was Foster City and not San Mateo. Then I realized that on most computers Foster City is the second choice and I ask them to scroll down to that choice. But I find now that I have grown weary with this scenario and I am no longer willing to be complacent with the realization that in the eyes of the world we are not a first class city, but a second by virtue of our postal identifier. And although I am frustrated with the process, I am aware that it is not the other person’s fault that San Mateo came onto their screen when 94404 was typed in.

While at a holiday gathering this year during a conversation with fellow community members what to my wondering ears should I hear but that I am not alone in this frustration? I have learned I have friends out there in Foster City CA, 94404 who share my views. They too find it hard to believe that a city with over 30,000 residents (yes, it is true, the state notified us in August our population exceeded 30,000) does not have its own postal identifier.

My new year’s resolution, and I hope you will join me, is to gather support from members of the community in an effort to give 94404 exclusively to Foster City and to make our Post Office, Foster City’s Post Office, and not a sub-station of San Mateo.

I have no doubt this will be a prodigious undertaking which will be met with appreciation of our concern by the U.S. Postal Service and little else. The reason given will be that this condition has always been this way and that Mariners Island in San Mateo is part of 94404 and cannot be severed. If little communities throughout our country with populations well under 1,000 people can have a zip code proudly identifying them with an entity onto their own then why does a community our size with several Fortune 500 companies, eight schools and 30,000 citizens proud to call Foster City their home need to share a zip code with a handful of San Mateo residents and one shopping center? The phone company broke up 415 as an area code and we all survived, so what is the problem?

As a matter of fact I just decided to make this more than my new year’s resolution, but before I go any further, I want to hear from you. I can be reached at 286-3504 or jkiramis@fostercity.org. I look forward to the dialog. Thank you for the opportunity to be of service and a happy, healthy and prosperous new year to all.

John Kiramis is the vice mayor of Foster City.