Census Office for region opens in Sarasota
The Sarasota Early Local Census Office (ELCO), located at 2198 Princeton Street in Sarasota held an Open House Tuesday, (March 3) afternoon to celebrate the opening of its new facility.
The opening of the local offices marks the official beginning of the 2010 Census in the southwest Florida area.
Following the formal program, those who came got a guided tour of the facility and demonstrations of the hand-held computers to be used in the upcoming Address Canvassing operation beginning in April. The hand-held computers are only one element of the new technology being employed in Census 2010, officials there said. They are equipped with global positioning systems that will facilitate the validation of addresses of every household in the United States. The data captured in this operation will be vital when mailing or delivering questionnaires in the spring of 2010, officials said.
The local offices will have administrative staff of approximately 50 people and when operating at peak capacity, will employ hundreds of people from Sarasota and the surrounding counties to conduct the various field operations. Until additional offices open later this year, the Sarasota office covers Sarasota, Manatee, DeSoto, Hardee, Charlotte, Glades, Hendry, Lee and Collier counties.
The Sarasota office is one of 150 early local census offices that opened throughout the country in 2008/2009. The office has already tested hundreds of applicants and will be scheduling further testing opportunities in the near future.
The U. S. Constitution requires a count of the population every 10 years. This effort will bring together a national work force of nearly 1.4 million temporary employees to count every resident. It employs some of the most sophisticated technical and operational tools and methods of data collection available and builds on the success of past censuses, officials said. Census results are used to determine congressional representation, redraw congressional lines, and to distribute $300 billion of federal funds annually.
For more information on the Census 2010 go to www.Census.gov