Judy is back from the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) conference in Los Angeles. Several other Denver officials made the trip, including Councilman Paul Lopez, Councilman Rick Garcia, Denver Public School Board member Arturo Jimenez, and the director of the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Affairs, Michael Roque. All attended via non-public funds (either scholarship money, as in Judy’s case, or other funding sources).
The upcoming 2010 Census was an important theme of the conference. Los Angeles Councilman Tony Cardenas spoke about the important role of elected officials in encouraging that everyone gets counted — particularly in communities such as District 9 that have large minority and poor populations. Individuals in those populations are four times as likely to go uncounted as an average citizen, and such undercounts can cause a community to backslide.
Arturo Vargas, the executive director of NALEO, passionately urged the audience to get involved in the census and do our part to make it as accurate as possible. The census strengthens democracy, Vargas said, and he promised that NALEO will be working with its members to monitor the census effort in communities across the country.
The Department of Commerce is responsible for conducting the census. Commerce undersecretary Rebecca Blank reminded the NALEO attendees there are only 279 days until census day. The rollout effort are available in 2010 Census: On the Brink of the Count.
Blank said that one of the most daunting challenges involved in the census is apathy — many local leaders consider the census to be a federal issue and don’t understand why it is important for people to get involved at the neighborhood level. Judy will be looking for ways to work with neighborhood leaders to encourage everyone in District 9 to get counted.
