By Luke Gentile

The College Park City Council voted unanimously Oct. 9 to establish a 10-member Complete Count Committee for the 2020 Census to encourage greater Census participation in residents.

City Council Community Development Planner Kacy Rohn said the formation of the committee is in response to the lackluster registration numbers recorded in the 2010 Census by certain “at-risk” groups. She said “at risk” means a group is at risk of being undercounted in the Census. One of these groups is University of Maryland students.

“I wasn’t part of the discussion to start the 2020 committee this year,” she said. “However, once I started looking at it, it was immediately apparent that student registration was an issue from 2010.”

Rohn said the 2010 Census Tract, or geographic region, that included most of campus responded at a meager 49 percent, while the national average was 79.3 percent.

Mayor Patrick Wojahn echoed Rohn’s concern for student response rates at the Oct. 9 city council meeting.

“Groups like that can often fall victim to being undercounted, and that can be bad for the area,” he said.

Rohn said a higher percentage in student registration could have major effects on the city.

“If 50 percent more people respond at UMD, that would reflect a much higher population and could have an impact on congressional representation, the legislative boundaries here and it definitely would change the allocation of federal funding, which is very important too.”

But a 50 percent jump is far greater than what sophomore government and politics major Michael Duffy expects.

Duffy, who takes great pride in civic engagement, said, “I would argue students don’t take the time to register the same way they don’t take the time to vote. It’s just something out of their way and on top of all of the schoolwork and social activities they have in their lives.”

He said students need to hear more about the effect their registration can have on the city and feels students on campus need to be better informed about the area they live in.

Rohn said reserving seats on the Complete Count Committee for UMD staff and students would not only be beneficial for bringing in higher registration numbers, but it would also allow for students to become more engaged in their community.

In the resolution passed by the council, Rohn said there was a recommendation for the types of people who might fill the 10 seats.

“I think four of them were either student representatives or representatives of the university. So, there were two staff members, potentially someone from the Department of Resident Life and the Office of Community Engagement, and two students, and those could be represented by anybody,” she said.

Rohn said the council will now nominate and select members to the committee. Once a quorum is reached, meaning that half the members have been selected, the committee will be trained by a representative from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Rohn said she hopes work can begin as early as Jan. 19, 2019.

Duffy, who supports student insight on the committee, said he is considering getting involved.

“There certainly are students, like myself, who take political matters very seriously,” he said. “A lot of people here have politics in their majors. So, if anyone was ever so inclined to participate and work on the committee, I think they should have no reason not to.”

Photo by Lynsey Jeffery