Census visit takes mayor by surprise - Seven Mile Mayor Vivian Gorsuch wants everyone in town to be counted, but worries about duplication.

Middletown Journal
May 12, 2010

HAMILTON - Seven Mile Mayor Vivian Gorsuch was alarmed when she got a knock on her door from a U.S. Census Bureau worker.

As part of a push to make sure everyone in her village was counted, she not only mailed in a census form - she dropped a stack of them off at the Seven Mile Corner Market and urged all of her neighbors to send them in.

Like many in Seven Mile, she didn't get a form mailed to her home because she uses a post office box. The Census Bureau doesn't mail forms to PO boxes.

She and others worried that they wasted their time, and postage, mailing in the form if the government was just sending somebody around anyway.

Donna Marsh, regional Census Bureau spokeswoman, said the forms were indeed counted. But if they weren't received by the April 16 deadline, or processed in time - it takes a while to process hand-written forms, she said - an enumerator was still sent out.

This duplication could happen in many places in Butler County, she said.

"They will not be counted twice, but they definitely will be counted," Marsh said.

Gorsuch decries the "waste of money," but is comforted that the enumerator in her village appears to be interested in tallying everyone. Gorsuch is aiding her however possible.

"I do have people in the village who are concerned because no one has come to their door yet," she said.

The mayor has made it her mission to get everyone in the village counted.

This is because she believes the last census was wrong when it estimated the village population as 678.

"Someone didn't include parts of Seven Mile as Seven Mile," she said.

In addition to determining Ohio's representation in Congress, an accurate count is important in properly distributing $400 billion in federal funds awarded based on census data.

"When we go to apply for grant funding, it shows that there's not as many people as we say there are here," she said. "It's very important to the village to be properly counted because we are so small."