Compared to nation, state, Lynn lagging in census count

LYNN – Government officials and local activists are ramping up efforts to obtain an accurate U.S. Census count in Lynn and along the North Shore to Gloucester.In some cases, obtaining accurate population counts have been made more difficult by language barriers in the city. Census returns in Lynn were lagging behind the national and state averages as of Wednesday.U.S. Rep. John F. Tierney, a Salem Democrat, representative to the Sixth Congressional District and senior member on the Committee on Education and Labor, met Wednesday with students from Lynn English High to promote Census awareness.The congressman was scheduled to hold similar youth forums today and Friday with students at Danvers High School and the Miles River Middle School in the Hamilton-Wenham School District, respectively. He began the awareness campaign at a Gloucester middle school on April 1, National Census Day.Tierney’s message included updates on education initiatives in Congress, student loan program information and discussion of the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law. A representative from Tierney’s office was slated to attend the Census awareness youth parade in Lynn on Friday, dubbed March to the Mailbox.Weather permitting, students from the Ford School will walk to Central Square via Union Street for the event from 2-6 p.m.”If it doesn’t pour, the students will march to Central Square,” said U.S. Census staffer Nancy Gilbert from the Beverly office.Gilbert said event speakers will include Lynn Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy, Hispanic community activist Frances Martinez of La Vida in Lynn, and a member of Tierney’s staff.”The event is specifically designed to drive the rates up,” said Gilbert. “It’s an awareness-raising event to increase the mail response rate so that we don’t have to send out lots of people to knock on doors.”Gilbert, a Census partnership specialist, said she has been working with “hard to enumerate” portions of the city’s population, primarily the Spanish-speaking community. “We talk with the pastors of the churches to see if we can get them to help us increase the mail responses,” she said.If a downpour occurs on Friday, the Central Square event will be held at LynnArts art gallery at 25 Exchange St.Damon Harrison, a member of the volunteer Lynn Complete Count Committee, said the city Census for 2000 was up by 9.6 percent while the statewide average was 5.5 percent. “We’re doing the final push,” he said. “The Census mails out the forms during the first week of April, then people mail them back. After a certain date, the forms that come back aren’t going to count. That’s when the Census sends an enumerator to your home,” he said.In addition to Harrison who represents a city neighborhood, the Lynn committee includes Diana Kerry from North Shore Community College, Amanda Richard and Kati Fleet from the Children’s Law Center in Lynn, and Donald Edwards from the Operation Bootstrap literacy program.”They have been laboring hard,” said Harrison, noting that the volunteer committee received a grant from Secretary of State William F. Galvin’s office to assist with the effort. “We’re going to see if we can kick up the numbers.”Harrison said more than 20,000 of the 36,000 households in Lynn responded to the Census in 2000.James Messeder, director of the regional Census office in Beverly, said a count of mail returns as of Wednesday afternoon indicated Lynn was below both the national average of 62 percent and state average of 63 percent.In Lynn, the mail return rate was 51 percent. Beverly had a 67 percent return, Peabody showed 68 percent and Salem 59 percent.”Obviously, Lynn is way behind,” said Messeder, who asked that residents be reminded an individual’s residency status is not a consideration in the Census. “So regardless of whether a person is here legally or illegally, they should fill out the 2010 Census form. The privacy of any data provided to the U.S. Census is kept under lock and key for 72 years as required by law,