Saturday, July 25, 2009
By Denise Dick
The township received a kit from the Census Bureau and sent in corrected boundaries.
BOARDMAN — It turns out portions of the township weren’t left off of a U.S. Census boundary map as township officials had thought and was reported last year.
Late last year, the township received a map from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Boundary and Annexation Survey. Based on shaded areas of the map and a legend that read “Census designated area,” township officials believed large portions of the township south of U.S. Route 224 between Southern Boulevard and Yellow Creek and between the area around Mill Creek Park had been left out.
That area includes Boardman Park and several housing developments such as Presidential Estates, Huntington Woods and Ivy Hills.
That led Administrator Jason Loree to wonder if the population numbers documented for the township were correct. According to the U.S. Census Web site, the township’s 2000 population was 37,215, down from 38,596 in 1990. The recent population number provided by the Census also was 38,000.
After reviewing the map, Loree and Ben Breniman, planning and zoning director, contacted the Census Bureau to correct it.
“They sent us a kit, and we had to draw in the boundaries and had to identify all of the streets,” Loree said. “It was a lot of work.”
The Census employee they spoke with even told them that one of the code numbers listed for the township was registered to a community in the New York area.
Laura Waggoner, Census boundary and annexation survey project manager, though, believes the map is correct. While only a portion of the map is shaded, the township’s boundary includes the whole community.
She acknowledged that the maps can be confusing.
It’s good news if there wasn’t an error, Loree said, but he’s skeptical about the future.
“When we do get the information from the Census, we will be following up to make sure everything was counted this time,” Loree said.
denise_dick@vindy.com