Government And Community Leaders Briefed On Census And Census Day

Oconee County government and community leaders were given a target when they met early this month as a lead-up to Census Day on Wednesday.

They were shown Census Participation Rates for both the 2000 Census and the 2010 Census.

In those two Census years respectively, 74 percent and 82 percent of the residents in the county returned their forms by mail, making it unnecessary for a Census Taker to run them down in person.

Tim Carter, partnership specialist with the Atlanta Regional Census Center of the U.S. Census Bureau, told the group that each person should get three requests this year to fill out the form online or by the phone and a fourth to fill it out and return it in the mail before a Census Taker would seek to contact her or him in person.

Carter was one of two featured speakers at the Quarterly Community Meeting of the Oconee Area Resource Council held in the Commission Chamber of the Oconee County Courthouse in Watkinsville.

“The goal of the 2020 Census is to count everyone once, only once, and in the right place,” Carter told the group, asking it to repeat the ditty along with him.

Guy Herring, director of the Oconee County Planning and Code Enforcement Department, told the group after Carter spoke that the Census “provides us a wealth of information that will guide decision making, funding for the community, and services that we provide.”

For more on this story, with a video of the meeting on the Census, please go to Oconee County Observations.