Rich Civic Times
RANDOLPH, Utah. January 8, 2020. It is
important that only full time Rich County residents fill out the 2020 Census
forms, so that an accurate count of residents can be made. Since the census takers will go house to
house in the summer, they may inadvertently get people who are short term or
weekly renters. This problem is
exacerbated by the fact that the census forms will not be sent to PO boxes,
they will come with actual land addresses and then will be sent back to the Census office because we
have no local delivery. However there will be a web address which can
be accessed by citizens to fill out the census.
It may seem that this is a relatively unimportant detail,
but all government, both State and Federal, funding is based on population and
without an accurate count Rich County could be denied funding for needed
projects like road and bridge repair.
Coralys Pulz and Colby Child, 2020 Census, talked to commissioners about
the 2020 census. They are establishing "Complete Count" committees in each county
to raise awareness and to overcome any
concerns. They said it is so important
for the census to be accurate. It
determines what grants are given, and if Utah will get more congressional
districts.
They are looking for part time census takers. They are
hiring at $16 - $20 an hour and it will last 8 weeks. The hours are flexible. They will train the
census takers so no experience is necessary.
They would like having locals to take the census because neighbors
taking the census makes it easier. 2020 census.gov/jobs
Commissioner Bill Cox said if the census forms are mailed with a street address they will not get to 95% of the
residents. He said that in 2015, he and
30 other commissioners went to Washington to outline this problem that affects
many rural areas. Then again in 2017,
but they still refused to put PO box numbers on the letters. They also use Occupant instead of names in the address.
Cox said, "One survey polled people who were living in
Rich County during a few weeks in the summer.
Many short term rentals had people in their rentals here who had high incomes and many of those secondary home people were polled. So our median income is incorrectly reported
at $79,000 because of people with high incomes who have second homes or were vacationers. That makes it harder to get grants for
the locals who have a much lower income."
Pulz said it is important that only the people who live in
Rich Count the majority of their time,
fill out the forms. So people vacationing here or who have secondary residences
should not fill out the form for Rich County census. Norm Weston suggested that they check with
the assessor to see who is the owner and if that residence is considered a secondary
home when the census takers get their route.
“Mail it to their post office box and you will get the
residents,” said Cox. “ I don’t get why
you can’t get PO box numbers. The form
is mailed to “Occupant” at a certain street address but without a PO
number. The local post office has no
idea who it should go to." It was
suggested that the PO office print a list of addresses connected to the PO box and
use it for Census mailing.
Over 75% of homes in the county are secondary
residences.
Pulz said that she will talk to her director. Pulz wants the owners of short term rentals
and secondary homes to understand that they should not fill out the census and short
term rental owners should warn vacationers not to fill out the census. Bryan
Carver, BRAG, is on the state committee for census. The State awarded BRAG a
promotional grant for promotional material.
He will help to promote the census information. For more information go to 2020census.gov
