Next year's census will officially settle whether Augusta's population shrank, grew or stagnated during the past decade, and Mayor Deke Copenhaver kicked off efforts Monday to make sure no one gets left out of the count.
He introduced a volunteer committee -- divided into eight subcommittees -- that will soon be going into the community with a simple message: When you get your Census 2010 forms in the mail, fill them out and return them. The city's share of federal funds depends on it.
"We want to make sure that every single person in the community is counted," the Rev. Paulwyn Boliek, Complete Count Committee co-chairman, said at a news conference Monday. "Without exception. Everybody."
The forms will go out in February and March with an April 1 due date, said Henry Armstrong, a partnership specialist with the Census Bureau. After May 1, census workers will start knocking on doors of addresses that didn't respond, he said.
For this count, only the 10-question short forms will be mailed, asking who owns or rents the house, the telephone number, the number of occupants and occupants' age, race and gender, among other things. They're easy questions, but the bureau anticipates that many households won't cooperate, Mr. Armstrong said.
"A lot of people may not fill it out because they don't trust the government. That simple," he said. "We're trying to make everyone aware that it's safe, confidential, and you don't have to fear any reprisals."
Mr. Armstrong said any worker caught leaking information faces a $250,000 fine and up to five years in federal prison.
In addition to counting people in households, the bureau has divisions responsible for tallying prisoners, hospital patients and homeless people.
The final numbers determine how much money the city receives in federal allocations, steer where new retail businesses go and where new schools are built, and will factor into whether Georgia gets more members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Census 2010 will also reveal raw numbers on such subjects as the city's white-black ratio and whether Augusta is losing population as neighboring Columbia County grows.
The other Complete Count Committee co-chairman is Paine College professor Mallory Millender.
He and the Rev. Boliek are also co-chairmen of the Mayor's Blue Ribbon Committee on Race Relations.
"This is extremely important to the future growth of Augusta," Mr. Copenhaver said. "I believe this will be a thankless job in some ways, but you all know how important it is."
Reach Johnny Edwards at (706) 823-3225 or johnny.edwards@augustachronicle.com.
THE COMMITTEE
The Augusta Richmond County Complete Count Committee members (appointed by the mayor):
CO-CHAIRMEN: Mallory Millender, Paine College;
The Rev. Paulwyn Boliek, retired Lutheran minister
SUBCOMMITEE CHAIRMEN AND CHAIRWOMEN
Government: Paul DeCamp, city planning director
Business: James Kendrick, Augusta Blueprint
Faith-based: The Rev. Kelly McKnight, Bible Deliverance Temple
Community-based organizations: Elsa Bustamante, Goodwill Career Center; Jeanette Cummings, CSRA Agency on Aging
Media: Frank Johnson, Paine College
Education: Terry Elam, Augusta Technical College
Recruitment: Hardi Jones
Special housing: The Rev. Kenneth B. Martin, Antioch Baptist Church
CITY POPULATION
Census 2010, the first comprehensive count in 10 years, will help settle whether Augusta's population is growing, shrinking or holding steady. After reaching almost 200,000 in Census 2000, yearly estimates based on trends and sampling had the population as low as 195,769 in 2005. A rebound last year was attributed not to inward migration, but births outweighing deaths.
CENSUS 2000: 199,775
2008 ESTIMATE: 199,486
The Augusta-Richmond County Comprehensive Plan predicts a city population of 208,000 by 2010.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau; College of Family and Consumer Sciences, Housing and Demographics Research Center at the University of Georgia
The Augusta Chronicle ©2010 Morris Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
The census will show that the population has grown but sadly grown with unproductive people. This was the trend long before the mortgage crisis.
Who will count the homeless? Hopefully the census will effectively count the homeless population this time so adequate dollars will be available to reduce homelessness in Augusta for the number of nonprofits working diligently to help. Unfortunately, without dollars and with unemployment growing each month, homelessness continues to grow leaps and bounds.
I will tell them how many people are in my house, and THATS IT. Any other info is not the business of the government. Period.
I hope Michelle Bachman doesn't pay Augusta a visit before the forms come out LOL.
Hey Deke! Call up ACORN to give a hand. Augusta will then become Georgia's largest popolated city.
Right on specialist. ACORN is the answer. And they already have plenty of Obama bucks to spend.
You people are so predictable. I knew as soon as I read the headline, some " Ditto head" would same something about ACORN.
Facts hurt - ACORN already has been awarded a grant to "assist" with the census. Try spying on the news for a change.
ispy4u, yes, but jackfruit must have caught you off guard..right?
OK, this thing smells already. When someone says, you don't need to fear reprisals, look out. Does every single person include illegal aliens? If so, will they then be arrested for violation of international borders? Or will they be given a check from my tax dollars? Also if race isn't supposed to matter, why do we need to know a white-black ratio? Finally, the most absurd of all, talleying prisoners? You mean they don't know how many they are supposed to have. Can't the jailer give them that statistic? This would be great if the end result is to identify the illegals and deport them, find missing prisoners and return them to jail, and just count the number of people as the constitution specifies.
ACORN, will have nothing to do with the census. Anyone with a fact (not Beck, Hannity, or Limbaugh) please post it.
Why is no one on the community organization group that deals with homeless? Goodwill and Area Aging both good agencies, but United Way or CSRA EOA would have been better to lead the group dealing with counting the homeless. Both help homeless on a daily basis.
http://www.capitalresearch.org/blog/2009/07/02/do-census-layoffs-clear-t...
THIS IS A STATEMENT UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT PUT FORWARD BY JUDICIAL WATCH A NON-PARTISAN GROUP
LOL...don't count on me.....
John Locke:.......SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Thats how they pump up the numbers of minorities. First they count as being in the pokey, then a family mamber at home counts them as a member of the household...B I N G O= a double count. Slick? huh?
The mayor doesn't have too much to talk about these days it appears. Has a news story ever appeared about Deke where it doesn't begin with "Mayor urges cooperation?"
John Locke, you are a moron. Prisoners have been counted in every census since 1850 and some places counted them even earlier than that. Prisoners reside in the US, too. And the census was not, and has never been, just about "counting people".
Actually it is only about counting people so that representatives could be apportioned. It was one of the compromises during the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Originally it excluded counting Indians and only counted 3/5ths of "other persons" being slaves. So it was about counting people. The more people you had, the more political power you had. The 14th Amendment modified who would be counted to "counting the whole number in each state." So lets review, Article I Sec 2 (Mod 14 Ammend) of the constitution says to "count the whole number of persons in each state." That would include prisoners, as you missed my point is that they should already be counted, unless they are running loose. So, let me check,.....um nothing about how many TVs, beds, cars, money you make, etc according to the US Constitution. Nope, just people.