Preparations underway for 2010 Census

By Susan Hogoboom
The Alpine Sun

     With the 2010 census just months ahead, efforts are being made to ensure that each and every California resident will be counted.
     On June 12, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order to create a Complete Count Committee to work in conjunction with the U.S. Census Bureau. The 52-member committee is comprised of community leaders. Appointed by the governor, members are teaming up with trusted leaders and with elected officials to get the message out to California residents to complete and submit their census forms.
     On Aug. 19, on a 20-stop tour, the committee visited San Diego County, meeting with the public and elected community leaders at the Joe and Vi Jacobs Center.
     The committee gave the public an overview of what a census is; what the questionnaires will entail; the confidentiality of responses; and resources that will be available, including U.S. Census-funded questionnaire centers that will be staffed to aid residents in the forms’ completion.
     “There was quite a large gathering and a great response from San Diego,” said Eric Alborg, a census spokesperson for Gov. Schwarzenegger, who boasted a turnout upwards of a melting pot of 250 people. “There were community leaders from all sorts of organizations representing both the ethnicity and other diverse elements of San Diego.”
     “This was one of the largest … we’ve had, if not the largest. People came from every walk of life you can imagine,” said Alborg.
     The committee stressed the importance of cooperating and filling out the census forms and the possible consequences of not doing so, including a lack of funding for services many Californians use.
     “If we don’t count all Californians in 2010, there will be billions of dollars in federal resources at stake,” said Alborg.
     Also, there are reports California could potentially lose a congressional seat for the first time in its 159-year history, which is based on the state’s population.
     Alborg said that because of California’s diverse population; multi-family households; large illegal immigration status; and language barriers, it has ten of the 50 hardest-to-count counties in the nation, with Los Angeles being number one and San Diego ranking 11th.
     “Regardless of immigration status, we want to count all Californians,” said Alborg.
     With the state’s financial woes, community outreach services have not been funded as well as they have in past years.
     According to Alborg, more than 150 services could be affected if there is an undercount. Services relying upon census counts include adult education, small business development, affordable housing, veteran and senior citizen health, transportation, disabled services, and education, among many others.
     The committee’s efforts will continue between now and the actual counting. It has been ordered to submit an interim report to the governor by Nov. 30. The report is to contain a recommended outreach strategy to encourage full cooperation with the census.
     The census takes place every 10 years and is intended to count all individuals residing in the United States.
California’s census will be divided into two sections. The Seattle Region will cover Northern California, as well as Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska, and the Los Angeles Region will include Southern California.
     Questionnaires are scheduled to be mailed between February and March 2010.
     April 1 is Census Day, and from April to July 2010, census takers will knock on doors of households who failed to return their questionnaires.
     Federal law requires all California residents to participate and truthfully answer census questionnaires in the census or face possible monetary penalties.
     For more information about the upcoming 2010 Census, go to www.census.gov.

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