Fill Out the 2020 Census Today!!

Hey, hey everybody. It's Derek Kilmer here and today we're talking about something that's super important and that is the 2020 census. Uh for those who can't recall the census was created in the Constitution as a way to count everybody living in the United States and um uh it's carried out every 10 years. It determines a whole bunch of stuff uh including your representation in Congress and how districts are uh uh a lot. Um it also determines how federal dollars are allocated your tax dollars for things like schools and roads and fire departments and health clinics and uh for community resources like senior services and veterans programs. So today I am joined by my two good friends and two great community leaders from our region, Collin County Commissioner Marcos and Forks City Attorney and Planner Rod Fleck, who are gonna give you a. Bit more information uh Commissioner Why don't I start with you Um there's a big deadline coming up on September 30th. It'll be the last day for folks to complete the 2020 census so remind folks why it is so important to fill out the census and what it means for county. Absolutely Thank you Representative Kilmer. I know the census data is used to allocate as you said used to allocate federal dollars across a really wide variety of programs and you know virtually all of those have really significant impact on the residents of county where. 35% of US live below the federal poverty level, where more than 50% of students qualify for free or reduced lunches. about a quarter of a county residents rely on food stamps, Food stamps and the snap program, and those are the kind of federal programs that are funded with federal dollars uh which are determined by the census and you know it includes other programs like head start uh. Educational support like school lunches, Special ED programs uh roads and bridges and transportation housing assistance, rural rental assistance, health, care behavioral health, care transit and and more. so you know really, you know, regardless of who we are where we live in the county. What are you know? what our own personal situation is uh our lives are very directly impacted on a daily basis uh with the census. And that's why it is really important for us to do as good a job as we can right now of getting all of this counted because those are our tax dollars and you know we deserve to have as much of those come back to our community as our community warrants and we only know that by how many people sign up for the census and rod you're out on the west end and we were talking right before we started uh recording about some of the challenges in terms of making sure that everybody gets counted and you know certainly this. Hasn't made it any easier to um to complete the senses cuz it's making some of the traditional uh you know kind of personal follow up tougher to do but give folks a sense, both of why it's important to get counted and how they um can be sure to get counted speak to how folks can be proactive and get the census filled out. Thank you sir. Um the census is vital to the West end. There's a large number of organizations that receive federal funding and that's allocated. Census numbers and also by the response uh with regard to income ET cetera, so it's it's important from the tribal perspective from the city's perspective and for the rural parts of county in that regard, you can you can be responding now you don't have to wait for someone to show up at your door. You can be responding now on the online by phone. There's a way to do that um or by mail the easiest way to do it is head over to 2020 census. Gov and if someone's going to come and follow up and they'll do it at your house, they're gonna have their credentials. They'll display they'll be wearing a mask. They'll knock on your door. They'll step back and they'll try to ask you the 1210 to twelve questions that are there and get that information and then move on um pretty straightforward and pretty simple to to be involved. If you don't speak English uh or if your neighbor doesn't speak English, there's a way that they can be help with the phone system and do the census in the language that. Familiar with uh and the last time I checked it was like twenty languages that were options there by phone. so that's another way to do it um pretty important and the genealogist me would be remiss in saying that this is a record that's made for and you know forever uh and 100 years down the road. It might be your great grandkid looking there and saying, Oh, that's where grandpa lived. Thanks for that, I think that's really helpful information and and commissioner you know so the census counts ending a month earlier than had originally been anticipated again September 30th. Uh I think I like you fear that can have some real impacts locally. So talk about where Collin County uh is right now in terms of uh of responses, maybe speak to how this shortened deadline might have a negative impact on rural communities on Native American reservations, which are often uh historically underrepresented in census data. Yeah. sure you know. Uh the deadline is coming up really quickly and I've certainly joined with you and others who I really would like to see that deadline extended and you know I mean to to my mind that the Census Bureau and the the dedicated employees that work for the Census Bureau and I've had the chance to meet a number of them uh are amazing and they work their whole purpose in life is to make sure uh that we have an accurate and complete count and. Uh on the local level, there are folks who have organized all across the country. Volunteers non profit uh non-profit organizations, local governments, library systems uh advocacy groups and others to for the same purpose to ensure that we get an accurate and complete count. and when I hit as many of these strategies, we're just starting to unfold all across the country. All these folks have had to completely revise our outreach strategies and advocacy strategies and given all. The work that goes into the census and given how important the accuracy of the data is uh I really think we should be doing everything we can to prioritize accuracy. uh the good news in county given this early deadline is that overall as a county we're doing well uh in fact, uh we've already surpassed our self response rate from the 2010 census and uh we're somewhere north to 68% county wide as of last check uh. Know really our highest self response rate has been on the east end of the county. as we've already discussed the further west. We travel the lower our numbers and you know there are a variety of reasons for that. uh there's less access to technology and broadband, and when the census is uh, you know, we're really pushing filling it out online. that can be a tough. they're mistrust in government uh many other barriers and we're working hard to overcome those and I did wanna note I would really appreciate it calling out the uh it's. Website and for those who have concerns about you know rumors that they might have heard or or uh you know what might happen with their data or how census workers uh treat that there's a really great question and answer and sort of uh debunk on the on the census web page. So that's a great place to go to to get honest and accurate information uh about how that data is used uh and it is it is difficult in rural areas for all these reasons uh but the reality is that it is really real. Important that we finished with as complete and accurate account of county residents as possible and that is especially the case in the west end of the county where right now, the count is the lowest or the number of respondents are the lowest and where the economic need is the greatest and where the most of uh the majority of tribal citizens and tribal governments here in county uh have the access to opportunity the opportunity to ask. Federal dollars to help support their citizens uh and of course, you know this is gonna be for the next decades. so there's every reason to do everything we can to get a good count now and to really pursue as many uh creative strategies as we can out in the West end to encourage those folks to to participate and I think you may you touched on two really important things. Commissioner. You know one that the deadline uh you know, frankly, I think the deadline should be extended past the original date rather than um moved up we had. Uh four former directors of the Census Bureau actually spoke out on that on a bipartisan basis, saying that uh raising concerns about that I joined some of my colleagues in sending a letter to the director of the Census Bureau and to the Secretary of Commerce, um expressing opposition to that decision to end the census data collection uh at the end of September, um but the other thing you touched on was just making sure folks know kind of what the census is and what the senses is in terms of just protecting people's privacy. It's I think important to remember that by law the. Cannot release Any identified identifiable information about folks about their home or their business or um to law enforcement agencies, all of that's protected under the law. Um so when you respond to the census, you remember that your answers are kept anonymous. They're only used to produce uh statistics and the Census Bureau is bound to protect your answers and keep them strictly confidential. and maybe I'd ask you to just weigh in here, you know certainly. You know we've heard folks who are wary of giving information to the government when it comes to the census so speak to why it's imperative that folks take action to get it completed and maybe say a word or two about just some of the safety measures that are in place here right um well, it's important. I mean examples are the free and reduced lunch at the Valley School District or a Pecan CQ that is allocated um in part with results from the census. There are additional funding programs at the school that I'm aware of that are. Very tied to census numbers and census data, and so those are just two that I'm you know like right in the front of my mind is most everybody's having their kids go back to the K twelve system uh in whatever form and so that you know those funding mechanisms are vital for the operations of things we hold dear in our communities our school, our hospital, our social service network and safety net. Um the census has it's it's origins are in the constitution. So it's one of those functions that we can point right to the Constitution, says. 10 years, this is what you will do and as a result, the federal government has created a series of laws entitled Thirteen in the US code that make it very clear that this is private. that makes it very clear that there are penalties if that privacy is breached that are um not only fines but potential criminal penalties as well. and so it's the goal is to keep the information anonymous and to keep the information private and to keep and get accurate information. We are not doing as well as uh the rest of the county uh here in forks and on the West end uh. Return rate is just under 50%, um most of that has been on the line and and so II know the mayor Mayor Fletcher has been about every three to 4 days trying to encourage in some ways people to fill out the census form on social media or in the forks form or whatever methodology we've got um and we do run into this as well. I've heard that the government can do whatever they want with this data. Well, No it's statistical information. It's uh it's been the. Way it's been kept that way uh for decades if not centuries and so it's vital that people realize this is something the constitution encourages and expects citizens to participate in and in doing so to protect the citizens information and their privacy. so it takes maybe 10 minutes or so to do and you can do it there on again on that website 2020 census.gov um if you don't. Access to that and you're you're seeing this or hearing this then um you can uh utilize one of the phone numbers or if your neighbors saying, Hey, I don't know how to do this help them out. make help them with that phone call or use your cellphone or whatever to make that call and and and um and truly please help us meet our obligation to get an accurate count. The city of Forks. It's our 75th anniversary and our motto is everyone counts here uh and that. It was to try to tie our successes in the past and our hopes for the future with completing this monumental effort. That's awesome. Rob and II really appreciate uh the city of forks uh sort of embracing that uh ethics so thank you for that and and um and I understand commissioner that there's also a healthy competition with uh with our neighboring county with Jefferson County as well uh every 10 years. This competition so uh anything you wanna add about that commissioner uh well I would love to see both and Jefferson counties be the top two counties in the state in terms of our response rate. Uh I heard that happened 10 years ago right. That is what happened 10 years ago, and we've got a little bit more work to do uh to get there. Uh, however, I would say that we've been uh comfortably ahead of Jefferson County for the majority of the. The census uh portal opening time so far and I trust the residents of this county to make sure that continues to be the case. So uh we don't wanna lose those bragging rights and uh one of the Jefferson County commissioners and I have a little friendly wager uh riding on the outcome. so uh I've got personal interest as well. Well, folks, no matter what county you live in this is your chance to be counted. It's a once in 10 year chance to get counted and all it takes. This is just a less than 10 minutes service so please if you haven't already head over to 2020, census.gov or call that phone number and get counted be sure to get your census filled out and thanks everybody for watching. we'll see you soon. Thanks.