Enid is having a party, and anyone who hasn’t turned in their U.S. Census Bureau forms is welcome to attend.
The party will be 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday at the city administration building, 401 W. Garriott. Lunch will be provided and is sponsored by the city of Enid and Wal-Mart.
“It is very important that everyone is counted for a variety of reasons … but the most important for us at the Enid Regional Development Alliance is that the statistics gathered from the census are what we use to solicit for new businesses to come to town,” said Brent Kisling, executive director of the alliance. “Retailers want to know how big their market is and employers want to know the size of their available work force.”
Already, Enid and Garfield County residents are ahead of the game. The county has the second-best rate in the state in terms of returning census forms. So far, 53 percent of the forms distributed in Garfield County have been returned, second only to Ponca City and Kay County with 54 percent. The state of Oklahoma return rate is 44 percent, while the national average is 46 percent.
U.S. Census Bureau will mail another round of 2010 questionnaires to about 40 million households April 1-10. These replacement questionnaires will give people who have not yet responded another opportunity to fill out their forms and return them by mail. The goal is to increase mail response rates in areas that had low mail response rates in 2000 and decrease expensive door-to-door follow-up operations, said Everett Morris, of the Kansas City Regional Census Center.
The difference in the cost for mailing a questionnaire back compared to door-to-door enumeration is significant. U.S. Census Bureau estimates it costs approximately $57 per household to send a trained census taker to your door, while it only costs 42 cents to return the questionnaire by mail.
Some households may receive a replacement questionnaire with an incorrect or missing city name or ZIP code information. If your household should receive a census questionnaire with an incorrect mailing address, don’t cross out any information on the bar code or address, census officials said. If the form arrives at your home, your household will be counted in the right location.
There have been reports of scam census forms being put in mailboxes. These forms ask for a Social Security number. Legitimate census forms do not ask for Social Security numbers.
People who may need assistance in completing their 2010 Census form may call for questionnaire assistance at (866) 872-6868/TDD or (866) 783-2010. Telephone questionnaire assistance is available in Chinese, Korean, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese. The telephone numbers for in-language assistance may be found at http://2010.census.gov/2010census/contact.
Anyone who would like to receive help in-person can go to a questionnaire assistance center. To find a questionnaire assistance center, go to http://2010.cen sus.gov/2010census/take10map and click on “Find a Questionnaire Assistance Center.”