HUNTINGTON BEACH : City Still Disputing 1990 Census Figures

City Administrator Michael T. Uberuaga said Wednesday that the city still has not given up trying to persuade the federal government that it undercounted Huntington Beach’s population in the 1990 census.

“We’re not willing to back off yet,” Uberuaga said. “What I am thinking of doing now is having the (city) staff design a statistically valid telephone poll we can make of the city. I’d use the poll to get an idea of how many people did not participate in the census.”

Uberuaga and other city officials contend that Huntington Beach was undercounted by about 10,000 residents. Since federal and state funds are allocated according to population, such a loss is a serious blow to the city’s treasury, city officials have said.

“I don’t have a figure I can immediately give (on how much the city would lose), but I can tell you that over the period of 10 years, a population undercount of 10,000 persons amounts to the loss of millions of dollars,” the city administrator said. He added that Huntington Beach therefore cannot dismiss the possibility of recouping some of its claimed population until all approaches are exhausted.

The federal government has said that Huntington Beach, as of 1990, had a population of 181,519. But before the federal head count, the state Department of Finance estimated the 1990 population at 191,600. The city claims the state is right and the federal government is wrong.

Deputy City Administrator Rich Barnard said Wednesday that the state’s annual estimate of each city’s population is based on a variety of statistical information. “The state Department of Finance gets information about a city’s number of housing permits, number of schoolchildren--a whole list of indicators and factors,” Barnard said.

In recent months Barnard has been in charge of investigating the city’s population situation. He said Wednesday that he is not recommending to Uberuaga that the city seek an official federal recount “because it could cost the city up to a half-million dollars and, also, there’s always a possibility that the recount could end with less population than the original count.”