The Circle Pines City Councilmember donned a cape, mask, and the alter ego Census Man at public events, television appearances, and meetings–all to spread the word about the Census. Circle Pines stood to gain valuable federal funding if its population was counted higher than 5,000. That’s money the town needs for road and other infrastructure improvements, among other things.
April 1 was Census Day in America, but this spring has been unlike any other because of the COVID-19 pandemic and related government shutdown.
“There’s a lot of delays in terms of what people can do,” said Goldberg in an interview from his home last week. “In Circle Pines, we were door knocking on apartment buildings, telling (renters) about the importance of the Census, because they are, traditionally, a hard-to-count community. We did one of the three apartment complexes in our city” before the shutdown and stay at home orders went into effect.
Goldberg said the federal enumerators who go door-to-door helping count the residents were supposed to go out in mid-March, but now that effort has been delayed until at least the fall.
Circle Pines Mayor Dave Bartholomay penned a letter that the city can send to renters.
“It’s not quite as good as someone knocking on your door,” said Goldberg. “We’re hoping (the letters) have an impact.”
He also said early indications from online responses show that Minnesotans are responding ahead of other states’ rates, and that bodes well for the state to hold on to all eight of its seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“I’m praying that leads to us being able to keep our eighth seat,” he said.
Residents should receive Census paperwork in the mail, and if they haven’t, can’t, or don’t want to fill out forms online, Goldberg encourages everyone to fill out the paperwork by hand and mail it back in, or to call the Census Bureau to be counted instead.
