A proclamation recognizing the importance of securing an accurate and complete population count in the 2020 US Census.
Thank you. Thank you. All right. For our next proclamation, Councilwoman Ortega, will you please read proclamation eight, nine, eight? I would be happy to. Proclamation number eight, nine, eight. Recognizing the importance of securing an accurate and complete population count in the 2020 U.S. Census. Whereas the United States Census is a constitutionally mandated, complete assessment excuse me of the population and has performed. Decennial since 1790. Most recently in 2010. And. WHEREAS, the Census determines the allocation of seats for the U.S. House of Representatives, redistricting of state and local government, legislative districts, and distribution of more than $675 billion in federal funds to state, local and tribal governments. Whereas, Mayor Hancock has named three co-chairs Pastor Del Phillips, Dr. Jeanine Davidson and myself to lead the Denver Complete Count Committee that is in process of training key city employees and community partners to assist with this critically important citizen outreach effort. And. Whereas, in 2010, Denver's efforts were a model that cities across the country worked to replicate because of our financial commitment to marketing, outreach and staffing that resulted in a high response rate. And we will be geared up to do the same for the 2020 census. And. Whereas, Denver is a growing city and an accurate census count is vital to meet the evolving needs of Denver residents, Census 2020 will direct the amount of federal money distributed to Denver for housing assistance and rehabilitation, education and early childhood to higher education, transportation, infrastructure, senior centers, libraries, hospitals, facilities for people with disabilities and emergency planning . In response. And. Whereas. Punitive actions taken by President Trump against immigrants and refugees from various countries will require our best efforts at the local level to be far reaching. And. WHEREAS, it will be challenging to alleviate the fear of hard to count communities and to educate and encourage full participation by everyone in the upcoming 2020 census. And. Whereas, ensuring a complete census count is imperative because the data will profoundly impact Denver residents far into the future. And. WHEREAS, everyone, whether a United States citizen, a refugee immigrant or an undocumented worker, we all rely on the programs and services provided by local and state government, paid for in part by federal grants. And we're as the Complete Count Committee should address various racial, ethnic, cultural and geographic considerations of the community to ensure residents understand the census process, trust in its confidentiality, understand its importance, and fulfill their obligation to participate as is required by law. And. Whereas, Census data is highly protected and confidential, the Census Bureau is not permitted to release responses to the Census, furnished by any individual or on behalf of an individual or release information to other government agencies, including the IRS, Immigration and Naturalization Services, law enforcement agencies or welfare agencies. Now, therefore, be proclaimed by the Council of the City and County of Denver, Section one that the Council of the City and County of Denver shall support and assist in the Complete Count Committee in fulfilling the goal of achieving a complete count of Denver residents. This will be accomplished by formulating effective strategies to ensure Denver's response rate in Census 2020 through outreach, information, campaigns and community engagement. Section to the complete. The Committee will harness the local knowledge, expertize and influence of each committee member to design and implement a census awareness campaign targeted to communities throughout Denver with focused, structured neighbor to neighbor outreach. Section three that the clerk of the city and county of Denver shall affix the CEO of the city and county of Denver to this proclamation and that a copy be transcript transmitted to Pauline Nunez at the United States Census Bureau. Thank you, Councilman Ortega. Your motion to adopt. I move for the adoption of proclamation number 898. Has been moved and seconded comments by members of Council Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. Most cities across the country have already undertaken their training for their complete count committees that are already seated. These are committees that are representative of broad sectors of our community. It will be important to ensure that we're recounting elderly folks, people who are homeless. We have something like eight or nine refugee communities in Denver that did not exist when we did the 2010 census count. So folks who are considered hard to count are going to be where part of our efforts are focused in ensuring that we do the absolute best effort to count everybody. Because if we do not, these are this is data that we're going to have to live with for the next ten years. And if we don't have a complete count, it may mean that we potentially do not get an additional congressional seat. We potentially do not get the resources that are earmarked to your cities based on the census count that you have for your jurisdiction. So it's going to be critical that we all play a role, including our city agencies that have any touch points with community to be getting the word out. And my hope is that we can look at trying to get a staff person on board as soon as possible and not wait until the 2019 budget, because so much of the foundational work needs to be happening right now. And, you know, Denver is geared up to put about the same amount of money in the 2020 census outreach that we had in 2010. And I think with some of the fear mongering that we have seen happening in this country, it's just going to make this job that much more challenging. And so I thought it was important to bring this forward, to put this issue on our radar screen and be looking out for us, beginning to push out more information as as this work evolves. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. Councilman Cannick. Thank you, Mr. President. First, I'd like to ask if my name can be added as a co-sponsor. I missed the email and I want to thank Councilwoman Ortega for her leadership on this. In the past, Councilman Lopez has also been a leader on Denver's count. He's he's been around long enough for two censuses. That's a huge accomplishment. I just wanted to underline Councilman Ortega's concern about our underrepresented populations in the sense that they are important and large pieces of our community. But some, because of the the events of the day and the inhumane policies of this federal administration have been, I think , driven somewhat into more of the shadows. And that includes undocumented immigrants, folks who are here with visas or other backgrounds, because even some of those communities have been targets for this administration, even when they are documented. I did just want to add the fact that our city has issued a comment in response to the federal notice that they were going to add a new question to the census on citizenship. No such question has been asked and the short form since 1950, because it's not a best practice that we get the most information from people when they don't feel like they are being vulnerable to a federal administration that is not supposed to use this information . But to convince folks of that is difficult, especially if the person at your door is asking a question about your citizenship. So to the council members, you know, this information came to us today as a copy of it from Gaby Corica, the legislative liaison for the mayor. But for our community, I want you to know that we have protested this proposed rule that was was receiving public comment in the Federal Register, along with many of the organizations in our community. And we protested both because of our desire to reduce the fear in our community as well as to ensure an accurate count that there are, you know, in the letter well, documents, the almost 15% of our city is foreign born. And again, many of those individuals are documented. They have legitimate papers and all of the things that give them the right to be here. But even they sometimes feel nervous. So it's our job to do both to fight efforts at the federal government that might create more fear and confusion, and then to assure people of the legal rights they have and to fight to protect them, to make sure that the rules are followed. So I want to make sure that our community knows that we're working on both those fronts. So with that, I will proudly support this proclamation. And then also I just want to add, I believe, Councilman Flynn, we're coming to government and finance for this topic. I don't know if you know the date yet, but we're working on scheduling an update for council as well. So to make sure we stay up to date. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Captain Canete. Seeing no other comments, Madam Secretary? Raquel Ortega. High Assessment a black eye. Brooks I Espinosa, i flinn i Gilmore. Herndon, i Cashman. Can each new. Mr. President. I. Madam Secretary, please close voting in no results. Sorry one person is missing. 12 Eyes. 12 Eyes Proclamation 898 has been adopted. Councilman Ortega, do you have someone you'd like to bring up? We do not. The staff from the Census Bureau is actually in Washington, D.C. at some training, and I will get the proclamation to them. All right. Thank you very much. That concludes our proclamations. Resolutions. Madam Secretary, will you please read the resolutions.