It’s April Fools Day but this is no joke. It’s National Census Day, the day Census officials would like you to get your Census forms in the mail to them, if you haven’t already.
Because we use census data in-depth in transportation planning, and because SRTC is a state data center affiliate for the Census, we take the Census very serious here at SRTC. I think you can tell just how seriously from our GIS guy Kevin’s get-up. And yes, even his headband has the Census logo on it. Is the headband overkill perhaps? Heck no, Kevin works up a sweat crunching numbers and the band keeps the sweat from getting in his eyes.
Kevin had some Census ‘factoids’ he filled me in on during this ‘photo shoot’: Hillyard is the neighborhood, or Census ‘tract’ area with the lowest return rate in Spokane County so far, with 37%. The Indian Trail area has the highest local return rate of 67%. And Washington State has an overall return rate of 57%.
Want more facts? Her’s a link to the U.S. Census Bureau website.
I see we are the lowest, but that does not surprise me, we always are very low on voting by mail also. Guess the census takers will have a lot of work to do.
Well, you win some, you lose some. What surprised me is that North Idaho is having a lot higher return rate than Eastern Washington. Our area of lowest returns is at 37%, while Kootenai County's is at 52%!
Sheesh Hillyard: are you going to put up with that?
You're a former Hillyardite (is that the proper term?) Holly. Can you make some calls? 😉