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By BILL DUHART
Courier-Post Staff
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home in Haddon Township ... whatever the mailing address.
Take your pick.
Haddonfield, Collingswood, Mount Ephraim, Gloucester City or Oaklyn - if you live in the township, one of these locations, none of which is actually in your municipality, is part of your official address. Unless, of course, you're lucky enough to share the 08108 ZIP code with neighboring Collingswood or the 08059 ZIP code with Mount Ephraim. In which case, the U.S. Postal Service is nice enough to let you substitute ``Westmont'' or ``West Collingswood Heights'' for an address without delaying delivery.
It's not a unique problem in South Jersey. Just ask the folks in Gloucester Township, Washington Township, Winslow or West Deptford, which also share mailing addresses with surrounding towns.
But Haddon Township officials say bordering eight towns puts their community in a league of its own.
``It is an issue,'' said Township Commissioner Walt Eife about Haddon Township's identity crisis. ``It's something we have to work on.''
Eife, one of three commissioners who make up the township's government, said he'd like to start raising the profile and identity of the township by getting signs on Routes 38 and 70. Exit signs onto Cuthbert Boulevard south from both roads make no mention of Haddon Township, even though it starts less than a quarter-mile away.
But even the modest accomplishment of traffic signs wouldn't begin to solve all of the township's identity problems.
``It starts with an attitude,'' Eife said. ``We've got great schools. Property values are going through the roof. People know of Haddon Township, but if you ask them to point to it on a map they'd have a hard time finding it.''
Postal Service spokesman Ray Daiutolo Sr. said the post office is sensitive to Haddon Township's problem, but getting its own mailing address is not possible at this time.
``We'd have to put all of the deliveries under one ZIP code and we don't have a large enough post office in that area,'' Daiutolo said.
Daiutolo said Haddon Township gets about 6,500 daily deliveries. He said a 1999 request from state Sen. John Adler, D-Camden, and former U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N. J., for the township to get its own mailing address was denied. The reason was that the township had noncontiguous areas that are being served by post offices in adjacent towns. Daiutolo said until it can be proven that the present service is inadequate a new mailing address and accompanying handling facility will not be forthcoming.
Daiutolo said the Postal Service has agreed recently to meet with Washington Township officials about establishing a mailing address. Washington Township is currently served by six other postal addresses for about 40,000 daily deliveries.
But that township still is growing and officials possibly could find a location for a large mail-handling facility, Daiutolo said. He said finding space for a facility in Haddon Township would be more difficult.
Nothing is likely to happen soon in Washington Township either because the Postal Service has a capital budget freeze, he said.