County Challenges Census to Get $1.1 Million in Subsidies

Ventura County stands to gain about $1.1 million a year in state and federal subsidies if the U. S. Census Bureau confirms the county’s finding that 5,600 residents were missed by federal canvassers early this year.

County analysts filed a challenge to preliminary census figures late Monday, claiming that residents in 2,000 dwellings eluded census takers in January.

The uncounted residents, nearly half of whom live in unincorporated Oak Park east of Thousand Oaks, should be added to the census’s preliminary count of 650,880 before it becomes final in December, the analysts said.

Ventura County and its 10 cities had until 5 p.m. Monday to challenge the preliminary figures, which were released three weeks ago for review by local governments.

Each extra person added to the county’s population brings $200 a year to county government, while an extra resident brings a city about $50 annually through vehicle fees and gas and cigarette taxes.

Entire housing tracts in Oak Park and the city of Ventura were missed in the early count, city and county officials have said. That canvass failed to include up to 900 houses in Oak Park and about 300 dwellings in a mobile home park and in Rancho Ventura in eastern Ventura, they said.

Port Hueneme has also confirmed that it reported to the Census Bureau an undercount of about 140 dwellings.

County Planner Steve Wood said those were the areas of greatest undercount.

John Prescott, a planner in Thousand Oaks, said Monday that his city does not plan to challenge the census figures even though they are about 3,600 residents below 1990 state estimates.

“There were no areas where we thought there was any undercount . . .,” he said.

The 1990 census is intended to reflect population as of April 1, 1990.

Part of the difference between federal and local figures reflects dwellings completed between Jan. 1, when the bureau did its initial count, and April 1.

Even before revisions upward, Ventura County’s population of nearly 651,000 is an increase of 122,000 over the past decade. That 23% rate of growth is slightly under the 24% rate for California during the 1980s.