Agenda - 01-21-20 8-a - Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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26 1 2 The Census staff has already begun sowing CCC seeds. The NC CCC should not reinvent the 3 wheel, but we can support existing CCC and encourage CCC growth. 4 LOCAL ownership of the Census is key: 5 o GIS/IT support 6 o Elected Officials 7 8 Commissioner Dorosin said there is a lot of hiring for the census, and it may be good to 9 add a link—to work for the census— on the web. 10 Todd McGee said staff has been pushing that out on social media, but it can also be 11 added to the website. 12 Commissioner Price said recruiting events are already taking place. 13 Todd McGee said the "be counted" sites can now serve as a source for a job 14 application. 15 Commissioner Dorosin said he would like all of this information to be strongly promoted. 16 Commissioner Marcoplos asked if the personal home visits are a last resort, and if those 17 people are all paid employees. 18 Todd McGee said those people that visit homes are the paid census takers, employed 19 by the Census Bureau. He said those who are out publicizing the census are more likely 20 volunteers. 21 Commissioner Marcoplos asked if there is any expectation that every dwelling will be 22 contacted, or exhaustively checked. 23 Todd McGee said Orange County has always been very responsive, so the Census 24 Bureau is not concerned about Orange County, which leads to it being an unlikely candidate to 25 receive grant funds. He said he is worried about the digital divide, and the political atmosphere. 26 Commissioner Marcoplos asked if the participation percentage for Orange County is 27 known. 28 Todd McGee said the Census Bureau considers a 75% initial response rate to be good, 29 and Orange County was close to 90% in 2010. He said his goal is to be 10-15% higher than 30 the average response rate, and responses are accepted through July and August. 31 Commissioner Marcoplos asked if there is any benefit to marshal more volunteers. 32 Todd McGee said he is concerned about that because it may confuse people, since it is 33 unknown who has responded and who has not. He said it is possible that there will be an 34 online live response by census tract, which could possibly allow staff to engage in some 35 targeted outreach. 36 Commissioner Marcoplos said the federal government will have the specific information, 37 but sharing it would be a privacy issue. 38 Todd McGee said that is correct. He said the government cannot share identifying 39 census data with anyone. 40 Commissioner Bedford asked if there is a particular practice to county the homeless. 41 Todd McGee said the homeless are counted separately. He said the students that live 42 in dorms are also a unique group, which is counted by the University. He said a group that the 43 staff is concerned about is students that live in off-campus housing, since so many live in the 44 same dwelling. He said another hard group is those under age 5 years. 45 Chair Rich referred to the sites, and the upper right and lower left groups on the map, 46 and asked if there is a way to better reach this part of the population. 47 Todd McGee said the "be counted" site committee will look at this. He said a possible 48 location is the grange in the northwest part of the County. He would like to set up some 49 computers during one of their meetings. He said a volunteer fire station is another possible 50 location.