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Berkeley, Stand up and be Counted!
Berkeley, CA (Monday, March 20, 2000) – It is time for Berkeley to count! Over the last few days, after a feverish campaign effort to promote the importance of the Census 2000, United States Postal Workers began delivering 98 million questionnaires to residences nationwide. In
the next few days, the 110,000 Berkeley residents will be receiving their
own copies of the questionnaire in the mail.
The importance of filling out and returning the form cannot be
stressed enough. In
the 1990 Census, Berkeley suffered an undercount of approximately 4,000
people. While this may not
seem a significant figure in a large town like Berkeley, the city lost
almost a million dollars in federal funding.
This translates into schools that were not built, after school
programs that did not get funded, health initiatives that were never
started. This means certain
minority populations whose presence in our community was never even
acknowledged. In
an effort to make up for the undercount, the Census Bureau has taken steps
to simplifying the questionnaire. There are two types of forms. Five (5) of every six households will receive a short form. It contains six population questions and one housing question. To fill this out requires all of 10 minutes, shorter than the time it takes to maneuver onto Highway 880 from campus during rush hour. The remaining one of six households will receive a long form that has 31 population questions (including the six short-form population questions) and 21 housing questions (including the short-form housing question). Filling this out takes an estimated 38 minutes. For the first time, respondents may identify themselves as being more than one race. People may check off as many race categories as they wish. This gives Berkeley an opportunity to define itself rather than having to fit into a bureaucratic framework of ethnic distinctions. The
questionnaire has room for information on six household members. Where
there are more than six members, respondents fill in the additional names,
and a Census Bureau representative will contact them for more information.
Census Day is a
snapshot of the country as it is on April 1, 2000.
People are counted where they are.
Because Berkeley is such a unique town in that it has a college
student population, the students will also fill the questionnaire out ON
THEIR OWN. Parents will be
asked not to include their children in college on their questionnaires.
Dorms, co-ops, apartments will all be receiving a questionnaire to
fill out. Residents are encouraged to answer the questionnaire in the most honest way possible. No one, not even the FBI, CIA, NIS, Office of the President, or any other government agency, will have access to the data from the census. Residents are guaranteed privacy under the provisions of Title 13 and anyone in violation of that right will face harsh consequences. With this intense nationwide effort, Census 2000 has a budget of over $6 billion! For every 1% the national response rate can be increased, $25 million in taxpayer money will be saved. The time has come. In the next three weeks, residents nationwide will be deluged with census material and advertising. The residents of Berkeley need to get into the effort. Now is the chance to make for the lost revenue from the 1990 Census and to stand up and be counted! For more information about the national Census 2000 project, visit www.census.gov |
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