Nacogdoches city leaders are laying the groundwork for the 2010 Census and hoping to revise the green population signs posted around city limits.
Funding for schools, hospitals, community outreach programs and business development are all at stake, said City Commissioner Shelley Brophy, who was appointed by the mayor earlier this year to lead the city's census effort.
Staff photo by Andrew Rogers |
One of the many green signs seen around Nacogdoches displays the population from the census results in 2000. A 40-person committee was formed to count heads in the city and county for the 2010 census.
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"Almost anything you can think of that has to do with any kind of state or federal monies, has to do with population and the census," she said.
The 2000 Census reported that the population of the city of Nacogdoches was 29,914, and the estimated population of the entire county was 59,203. However, the latest estimates completed in 2008 say that there are 32,006 people living in the city, and 62,768 were estimated to be living in the entire county as of 2006.
"There's been some talk that Nacogdoches must have been undercounted last time, since it was less than the previous census," Brophy said, noting the residential growth in town and the historically high enrollment numbers at Stephen F. Austin State University.
"So it must be that everyone was not counted, and we know that we have to be higher. I think that most business people in town feel that we are much higher than the 29,000 from the last census," she said.
Under the direction of the federal government, Brophy is chairing a 40-person "Complete Count Committee" to handle the task of counting heads across the city and county.
The local committee members include leaders of industry, representatives from the medical field, faith based organizations, SFA and local school districts. Daily Sentinel Publisher Rayanne Schmid is also a member of the census committee, which has already met twice this year, Brophy said.
Also included in the committee are representatives from what is called the "hard-to-count" group.
In Nacogdoches, those people include SFA students and the Hispanic population, who have historically been the most undercounted segments in the city. Hispanics are generally undercounted across the country due in large part to immigration enforcement concerns, according to activist groups.
Working with City Planner Larissa Philpot, Brophy said all the neighborhoods have been mapped out, including those areas where the city expects challenges in getting an accurate count.
Brophy said that the fears over government snooping or immigration raids as a result of participating in the census are unfounded.
"The information that is given to the census bureau is not given to the IRS, or the INS or any other government agency," she said. "It's a stand-alone information collection effort, and the only thing they do with that data is to send out the population information, and then we get it back almost a year after its taken."
Officials at SFA are working with the committee to ensure that the students take part in the census, and Brophy said she is confident in the university's efforts to get an accurate count on campus. The tougher part, she said, will be to count the thousands of students who live off campus and rent homes or apartments. Typically, renters have been another trouble area for census workers to reach, because many have not updated their permanent addresses.
"What I hear from a lot of people who are renting is that they're bored with the restaurants, there's not enough shopping, and there is not enough industry bringing in jobs. But these are the things that getting a higher count can bring to the city," Brophy said.
And sometimes, college students are so used to living off their parents that they are confused about where they live.
"I think the confusion comes in when the students are dependants of their parents, and they've been counted on their income tax. Then they think that it makes sense to be counted there, too, but what actually matters is where your head is in the bed on April 1. Where you are living is where you are supposed to register with the census," she said.
Besides the jobs that the actual census will bring to the county, Brophy said other jobs that haven't even been created yet depend on what how high our population numbers go. Companies looking to relocate or open new offices routinely use census data to determine the kind of workforce and city they may move to, she said.
When the actual census forms go out to mailboxes next year, Brophy said residents will be given three reminders to send their forms in before a census worker visits their home. Brophy said that while committee members won't be using any of their own money for the census, they are trying to create a phone line to answer questions about the census and will be starting a poster campaign at the local schools to try and employ children to take home census information to their parents. In the months ahead, more is planned, she said.
"Our major push does not come until January to March, because we don't want people to get tired of it or become immune to the information were trying to disseminate. But we want people to get excited about our town and to get excited about being counted as part of our town," Brophy said.
