By Erin Wiltgen

chh@heraldsun.com; 918-1035

CHAPEL HILL -- With a new decade looming, the Orange County Complete Count Committee will meet Monday to discuss ways to spread awareness about the 2010 census.

The U.S. Census Bureau's primary goal is to maximize the mail-back response rate of census data nationwide on April 1, 2010 -- or Census Day. To do that, the bureau suggested local participation through volunteer complete count committee (CCC) programs, as happened for the 2000 Census.

"The Census realizes that this is a huge undertaking and that they can't do it alone" said Tom Altieri, comprehensive planning supervisor at the Orange County Planning Department and a member of the Orange County committee.

The Orange County committee meeting will be held at 3 p.m. at the Southern Human Services Center in Chapel Hill. The committee itself comprises a cross-section of the community, with representatives of groups such as the government, religious organizations, education and the media.

"This is really what the committee is about, bringing all of these organizations together and talking about how we can all help get the word out," Altieri said.

Besides promotional methods, Altieri said the committee will discuss obstacles that prevent people from mailing in the paperwork, such as language barriers, illiteracy, negative opinions of government or skepticism towards the Census' importance.

Altieri said that while this undermining of how the Census affects the everyday citizen is common, it is vastly incorrect.

Census results determine the number of seats a state has in Congress as well as the distribution of federal funds to states and state funds to individual counties.

Not only is it important, but it's simple to do, Altieri said.

"They say it's 10 minutes every 10 years," he said.

The 2010 Census will have only 10 questions, shorter than the one in 2000.

Citizens also have a few weeks to complete the form; Census questionnaires are distributed in March 2010 to every household and must be mailed by April 1.

Answers to Census questionnaires are confidential.

The emphasis on increasing the rate of mail-back questionnaires this year is to reduce the cost of door-to-door collection of Census information, Altieri said.

If a household doesn't turn in the information by April 1, the Census Bureau must seek out the information itself.

"But the process is much more manageable and less costly if everyone completes the form and turns it in by mail," Altieri said.

Which is why the Orange County committee wants to spread awareness of the importance of mailing in the census information by April 1.

"We can, I think, really have an impact on the success of the Census," Altieri said, "because certainly these members of the committee understand Orange County better than the federal government."