Travis County Commissioners Court
October 13, 2009,
Item 23
23. Receive update and take appropriate action on Travis County participation in the census 2010 complete count committee with the city of Austin, including: update on planning efforts; and consideration and adoption of Travis County nominees to the 2010 census Austin-Travis County steering committee and the 2010 census Austin-Travis County leadership council.
(There were no captions for the first three minutes of this item.)
>> ...in looking for the applicant, I ditto what Commissioner Gomez said about someone who is -- and I would like to say as we plan regionally, it would be very useful and helpful to try to identify people who have their arms around regional growth issues and trends and needs.q one is of the hard to count scores over 70.
and those are on one of the expanded maps and they are highlighted in pink on that map.
those -- those census tracks are where the census bureau has indicated high likely undercount last time or they believe this time perhaps because of rapid growth in that area or perhaps because historically the population in that area has been historically undercounted.
the second map is highlighted in yellow and that is the census tracks with a census score between 30 and 70.
those are, if you will, at-risk communities that we want to target.
so in trying to make appointments to the joint committees, both the steering committee and the leadership council, we're looking for people who particularly have networks in those communities and are prepared to help us strategize ways to reach out to the communities.
what I have presented to the court today is a partial list of members.
as you can see, the anchors of our effort on behalf of Travis County are our community center directors who really, first of all, are already out in these communities and 2, have extensive networks of their own, particularly people in at-risk populations.
sherri fleming has been wonderful about collaborating on asking community directors if they would serve on the steering committee and we have names for the leadership council.
as I indicated on the handout that I have given you, some of the people we've contacted but have not confirmed their availability to serve, we're continuing to work on that and we would hope to come back to the court next week with a complete list that the court could approve.
i would welcome any suggested additions that the court want want to give in terms of memberships in either of those bodies.
>> I supplied you with a list just recently.
>> yes, sir.
>> my question to you is, from that list I supplied to maybe fill these particular committees that we are discussing here today, when will that effort be actually -- when will you actually start the process to contact those persons to make sure that these particular committees, membership are filled?
>> I've already reached out to a couple people on that list and in a couple of cases I'm still waiting to hear back from them.
i've contacted the mayor of webberville who was one of your suggestions, mayor gonzales.
>> and suzanna alma (za and a couple of other people.
>> I was wondering, is it going to be a collective from all of the members of the court or staggered?
>> my hope is to get a list that I hope represents the different areas that we're trying to reach out to and represents a different talent of the citizens that the members of the court have suggested.
>> okay.
thank you.
>> this thought just came to me.
i apologize for not having provided this to you earlier, but perhaps we should touch the Travis County health care district to see if they would be willing to add someone to the leadership council.
because it occurs to me through the clinic system we ought to have the ability to disseminate information and encourage participation through our health care system as well.
>> I think that's a great idea.
i know that early on when the court talked about this in June, one of the people that was specifically mentioned was mr.
evans from Travis County mhmr.
he is going to be likely -- he's likely to be one of the city appointees.
as my handouts indicate, the city has not finalized its appointments either, but I believe mr.
evans will be on it, and I think a lot of health care workers doing work out in the community and have clinic networks out in the community would be a very good addition to this committee.
>> mr.
pena, mr.
reeferseed.
>> okay.
as a constitutional enthusiast, I urge everyone here to resist expanding these -- the duties of this census.
in other words, there is a potential for mischief in getting information on everybody and that's not what the constitution outlines for our -- the purpose of the census.
the census is to equally distribute legislative power among citizens and it's not to make these endless groupings of citizens into their own different methods to divide us.
that's all.
i'm just concerned about the constitution of the united states and, frankly, this administration, not only this administration, but of late it's been shredded and the true meaning and power of our constitution and we have to stick to it if we want to help lead the world into the future of life on this planet.
>> just as a point of information with regard to the census for the folks who are listening, the last census that went out was pages and pages and pages and pages long.
this census is 10 questions.
that's it.
>> the answers to the census questions are completely confidential.
>> I'm sorry, I was of the belief or understanding that there's several versions that are distributed.
>> census --
>> it used to be known as the long version of the census and that you were describing, Commissioner, is now handled through what they call the american community survey, which is an ongoing research effort that the census bureau does, and that actually gets updated every two or three years.
the dicennial census that's occurring next year which will use only the short form, 10 questions, and the answers will be kept confidential by the census bureau.
>> mr.
pena.
>> judge, Commissioners, gus pena.
back in 1986 under the president ronald reagan administration, the 1986 immigration control -- immigration reform and control act of 1986 was passed and legislated.
at that time thousands of people became eso of which we were well qualified.
i became ane.s.o.
structure and taught e.s.l.
to many immigrants who were trying to obtain the green card, temporary residency.
my concern is this, is that I hear some names, but the names are really not active in the community, but one of the groups, and I shouldn't style it as a group, population, that is traditionally undercounted is the immigrants.
legal or otherwise.
they should be counted.
i as a marine corps veteran swore to uphold the constitution of the united states of america, but I'll tell you what, everybody needs to be counted, given the opportunity to be counted in the census.
this costs us money when a person is not counted or undercounted.
i haven't said that, judge, Commissioners, I would ask this list be inclusive of people really out there touching basis, all groups, all facets of neighborhoods.
not just certain -- and I mean no disrespect, people are nonprofits, et cetera, you have some very good people you can reach out to that can become members of this group that know the population that is being targeted also and undercounted.
so my respectful request would be that you scrutinize this list and make sure that it is in fact what is occurring because we need everybody to be counted.
right now there is a scare out there that the -- they call it something other than i.n.s., but I won't mention the name.
to be honest, back in 1985 I took the test for border patrol and because of broken ankle was not able to go to the academy.
there's a scare.
watch out, somebody might report you to homeland security is what it's styled now.
word to the wise, let's go ahead and educate the people that don't be scared of being counted by the census.
it's very important.
>> [speaking in spanish] anyway, what I said is just have an inclusive process to be counted, everybody, because we need everybody counted.
and I hope that the list is inclusive of all areas of the population.
and to you, young lady, forgive me for saying you were from capital metro.
that's what I heard.
i promoted you.
anyway, thank you very much, judge.
this court, I do refer with what mr.
reeferman said, ronnie.
>> reeferseed.
>> this is a very professional group of elected officials.
judge, with your leadership, it is an open process.
you do a darn go job and thank you very much for the opportunity to express my concerns, our concerns.
>> when you -- if I give you a pretty comprehensive list that was far reaching that I felt would be really good representation of how -- let me know when you exhaust that list and what the response was from those individuals on that list.
>> thank you.
i appreciate that very much, Commissioner.
>> all right.
thank you.
>> we talked before about trying to get some of the individuals who work with immigrants day in and day out.
>> yes, sir.
>> have we reached out to them?
>> we are -- we've identified some of those groups that really do a lot of that service work and we are reaching out to them to include them, and the city is making that same effort.
so between us we're trying to negotiate which people we want to put on which committees.
we're very interested in having leadership from not just the city of Austin but from the unincorporated areas of the county on this group, but the fact of the matter is that many of the problem areas are inside the city limits of Austin.
so we're working very closely the mayor's staff.
>> will we see a comprehensive list that a person's -- city of Austin appointees, our appointees?
>> that's my goal, judge.
>> okay.
when do you hope for the court here to take action on committee composition?
>> next week.
>> okay.
mr.
pena.
>> briefly, and my apologize, and the reason I bring this forth, judge, sometimes I don't bring issues but other people, I have a lot of former students that are business owners.
i have a lot of students that are also in the education field also and they have been left out of the loop.
i respect all these immigrant entities that help out and do outreach, but a lot of them feel left out of the loop.
a lot of them feel traditionally they have not been represented appropriately, adequately by the so-called people educated into immigrant issues.
that's why we need somebody that the immigrant population respects and truly trusts.
right now the trust is skewered, severed.
we need to build the trust and I thank you very much and I would also like to scrutinize the list you have because sometimes it's not inclusive of the targeted population.
thank you very much.
>> we heard you, but it will help us I think if you have specific individuals.
give the steering committee to mr.
eckstein and we'll try to --
>> I do have that, Commissioner Davis, and I came prepared and I will give you a list.
>> it will help us out a lot.
>> it will help us out for everybody to be counted and represented.
thank you.
>> well, thank you.
>> okay.
anything else on item 23 today?
so you hope for us to take final action on the committee composition next week.
>> yes, sir.
and then there will be -- then we'll roll out the effort.
there will probably be some kind of media event at which we would introduce the complete count committee and we would ask probably you and mayor leffingwell to take the lead and there will be a training session done by the census people and then the steering committee will begin its more frequent meetings and leadership council less frequent meetings okay.
the census people hire local residents to help with this effort.
>> yes, sir.
>> when will they start doing that?
>> I believe that there's going to be a base -- sort of a management staff of 40 people who they hope to have hired, I would guess, by the end of the year or the very first part of next year.
and then there will be a large corps of part time people somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 people who will be hired during the census period and in the weeks and months after to follow up and make sure that all the residences have been hit.
>> why don't you get us an update on that Tuesday from the census folks.
especially the immediate hire.
>> okay.
>> we'll have this back on next week.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 6:51 PM
