Bradbury Miffed, Plans Own Tally

Officials in this tiny upscale city are furious with the results of the 1990 U.S. Census, and plan to do their own nose-counting to prove that they have at least 100 more residents than the 816 logged by census takers.

“Trust me, I’ve been here 18 years and I know everyone who’s died and who’s been born, and our population has not gone down,” said an irate City Manager Dolly Vollaire.

Vollaire said she will send her staff of three on a counting mission this week to disprove the census results, which show Bradbury slipping from 846 to 816 residents over the last 10 years.

A discrepancy of 30 residents may not seem like much to most folks, but to Bradbury, an upscale residential enclave without the sales-tax generating commercial developments of most cities, each additional resident translates into extra federal and state money.

“Obviously they did not go up the driveways of some of those estates,” she huffed. “When they’re building 14,000-square-foot homes, someone’s got to be living in them.”