The city of Athens announced the “Athens Come to Your Census” promotion Sept. 14 as an effort to increase citizen participation in the census and secure the city two additional City Council seats.
Athens City Planner Paul Logue said this incentive-based promotion appeals to the student section of the city through various giveaways. Due to this being the lowest responding census track, it is likely causing the city to miss out on two possible City Council seats.
“Student participation is critical for getting an accurate count of the population of Athens and to make sure that ... the city and its residents get appropriate federal funding for student grants and loans, public schools, safety, streets, infrastructure, housing, and countless other things. I can’t stress enough how important it is for everyone to complete the census,” Mayor Steve Patterson said in a city press release.
When the last census was taken on April 1, 2010, there were 23,832 people in the city of Athens, according to the U.S. Census Bureau website.
Logue said if the population of the city exceeds 25,000, under state law, the city will be required to add two additional seats to City Council.
One seat would be an At-Large council member, representing the whole city, and the other would be a Ward council member, representing a specific section of the city. The district seat would most likely represent the student population, Logue said.
In addition to these Council seats, Logue stressed the importance of federal funds being distributed properly to Athens. These funds are used for things such as new infrastructure, upkeep of old infrastructure, grants like the Federal Pell Grant, student loans and many other programs. The allocation of these funds is influenced by City Council.
Earlier this year, the city planned to have an assortment of events encouraging citizens, and especially university students, to complete the census, Logue said. However, with the appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic, those events were canceled.
The pandemic resulted in a “mass exodus” of students leaving Athens on March 17, Patterson said. Logue said this presented an “interesting challenge to have” for the city moving forward.
This challenge caused many issues in conducting the census, including, but not limited to, less door-to-door information collection, students being put on parents’ census incorrectly and not as much public encouragement to fill out the census.
In lieu of the previously planned and canceled public events, city planning intern Lauren Conner presented the idea of using the $10,000 grant the city received from the National League of Cities in the spring to help with outreach in a virtual and socially distant manner. Thus, “Athens Come to Your Census” was born.
The program consists of a raffle that Athens residents can enter through a Google Form after completing their census. This form closes Oct. 1, and the census closes Sept. 30.
The raffle winner will receive merchandise from uptown Athens businesses. This could include gift cards, apparel and other assorted goods.
As of Sept. 24, there were 75 participants in the online form, Logue said.
Logue said he hopes the program will be continued in future census years. He also said it depends on the success or failure of the promotion.
“Student participation in the census is a quick and easy way for today’s students to help the next generation of Ohio University students and to support the Athens community,” Jessica Thomas, co-owner of Brenen’s Cafe, said in the press release. “It only takes 10 minutes to complete!”
