Residents of Marana might find a common identity through their ZIP codes. At least, that's what its Town Council is hoping for.
At its Sept. 15 meeting, the council unanimously adopted a resolution to ask the United States Postal Service to change the primary name from Tucson to Marana for the 85743 ZIP code.
Additionally, the town wants the Postal Service to recognize Marana as a secondary name, after Tucson, for addresses in the 85741 ZIP code.
With about 8,400 addresses, Maranans constitute nearly 60 percent of 85743, yet the Postal Service still labels it as Tucson, dating to before Marana annexed so much of the area, said Josh Wright, assistant to the Town Manager.
Sometimes mail is delayed or lost if it is labeled Marana instead of Tucson, he said — even if the intended recipient's address is technically within town limits.
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Sometimes state agencies send important town information to the city of Tucson because they see an address that is labeled Tucson instead of Marana, he said. And council members as well as past council candidates have run into people on the campaign trail who didn't even know they lived in Marana, he said.
Marana has just 339 addresses — or about 3.1 percent — in the 85741 ZIP code.
That's enough to warrant a request to allow people at those addresses to label themselves as Marana but not enough to ask for the entire ZIP code to be designated mainly as Marana, Wright said. The Postal Service still designates 85742 as Tucson even though the city has no addresses there, he said.
Marana has 1,372 — 12.1 percent — of those addresses, while Pima County has 86 percent and Oro Valley has 2 percent.
The town isn't asking the Postal Service for a change to 85742 at this time because Marana is still developing and could annex more of that area in the next few years, and Postal Service rules only allow for a name-change request once every 10 years for each ZIP code, Wright said.
