Census takers counting on cooperation

The effort is largely problem-free so far, officials say, and workers are learning as they go door to door.

By MATTHEW WAITE

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 5, 2000

Although they've been working for nearly a week, census takers in Pasco County still are getting a bit of on-the-job training.

"It's still new to us, so we're still feeling our way," said Ivan Gartenlaub, manager of the census office that covers most of Pasco. "It's picking up every day."

Census takers, called enumerators in the parlance of the Census Bureau, have been walking the streets of Pasco since Saturday, trying to get information from people who didn't mail in their forms.

Gartenlaub and Mike Vallez, the manager of the Palm Harbor office that covers southwest Pasco, both said workers haven't had any problems in Pasco so far.

"No one's been bitten by a dog or any such thing like that," Vallez said.

By July 7, the census workers will have to visit about 45,000 houses in Pasco, or 34 percent of all households, from which no forms were mailed back to the bureau. "This census is quite a bit harder than the last few . . . because this is the one where we have to count noses," Gartenlaub said. "Right now we have to go out and count everybody, so we definitely need the cooperation of the public."

Workers bearing badges, privacy statements and forms are out seven days a week trying to get information about every person in the county, Gartenlaub said.

"People have been leery," he said. "They want proof (workers are from the Census Bureau), but other than that they have been receptive."

Because of the wide-open rural areas, more workers will be in east Pasco than on the west side, Gartenlaub said. It takes workers longer to go house-to-house on the east side because of driving distance. The density of homes in west Pasco means fewer workers can cover more space in less time, he said.

In west Pasco, more people mailed back their census forms in the Holiday and New Port Richey areas than the Hudson area to the Hernando line. On the east side, more Land O'Lakes and Wesley Chapel area residents mailed back forms than those in Zephyrhills and Dade City.

That bodes well for the census effort in Pasco. One of the main concerns was that with all the new development, people might be missed.

"You can just drive around the county and see all the new construction," Gartenlaub said. "Any map we get is almost out of date the minute we get it because there's always somebody building somewhere."

According to Census estimates, there are 48,923 more people in Pasco now than there were at the time of the last census in 1990. And some area observers think that number is conservative.

Officials worry about undercounting migrant farm workers -- the lowest response areas were agricultural areas around Dade City -- and the so-called "census backlash" of people not wanting to give personal information to the government.

In fact, census officials are barred from sharing any personal information with other government agencies, including local governments, the Internal Revenue Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Instead of matching the information census workers collect to specific individuals, it will be used only in aggregate form, where all the people in a particular block, for instance, would be considered together.

Gartenlaub said census workers have been talking to church leaders and farm owners in the Dade City area, trying to get them to talk up the census. And part of worker training is how to deal with people who "don't want anything to do with the government," he said.

"We have to do everything we can do to overcome their resistance," Gartenlaub said. "We just don't have a lot of time to change their minds. "We're trying to minimize the undercount to the best of our ability."

The North Suncoast door-to-door nose count started a little later than the national effort generally, which began April 27.

The enumerators will make up to three telephone calls and three personal visits to housing units believed to be occupied but for which no questionnaires have been received. After that, the enumerators are instructed to seek out proxy sources, such as a neighbor, a rental agent, a building manager or some other knowledgeable person 15 years old or older, to obtain basic data.

-- Matthew Waite can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6247 or (800) 333-7505, ext. 6247. His e-mail address is waite@sptimes.com.

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