MCKEON MAILINGS SAFE, PUBLIC TOLD.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Santa Clarita and Antelope Valley residents have been telephoning U.S. Rep. Howard ``Buck'' McKeon worried that mail from his office is contaminated with anthrax.

The congressman's spokesman said mass mailings that started arriving Tuesday at constituents' homes are safe, because they were never in the Capitol or Washington, D.C.'s Brentwood post office.

``We got numerous calls from people concerned about the mail, thinking it could be contaminated,'' McKeon aide Scott Wilk said. ``It was all done by a private vendor in Maryland.''

McKeon's annual Report from Washington newsletter was mailed last week to 160,000 homes in the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys. Also sent out were 9,800 letters to people who have contacted the office over the last year.

The letters invited people to his town hall meetings Saturday in Santa Clarita and Nov. 3 in Lancaster.

The newsletter and letters were printed in Maryland and mailed from the Waldorf, Md., post office, Wilk said.

The Capitol closed on Thursday after mail contaminated with anthrax was opened Oct. 15 in the office of Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D. The Capitol reopened Monday but congressional offices remained closed for further testing.

The letter had passed through the U.S. Postal Service's Washington mail sorting center on Brentwood Road Northeast, where two employees believed to have had anthrax died Monday and two others are have pulmonary anthrax. Two postal employees in Trenton, N.J., where the letter originated, have tested positive for cutaneous anthrax.