On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the addition of a new council that will ensure that every New Yorker gets counted in the upcoming 2020 census.
The council, which will be co-chaired by Martin Luther King III, Lucy Liu and Lin-Manuel Miranda, plans to act as the state’s coordinating arm to achieve a complete census count by using the information learned from the state’s Complete Count Commission and support from state, local and foundation funding resources. Gov. Cuomo also wants to propose an additional $10 million in this year’s budget to ensure a fair and complete count, which would bring the state’s financial support for the census to $70 million.
“As this federal administration continues to disenfranchise immigrant communities and use every means possible to stop them from filling out this year’s Census questionnaire, we are taking aggressive actions to ensure every single New Yorker is counted,” Governor Cuomo said. “This new council will lead the charge coordinating stakeholders so we can reach our most difficult to count communities and help ensure New York is accurately represented and gets the federal funding we need and deserve.”
To make sure that every person gets counted, the council plans on holding multiple press conferences to engage not just local officials, but also advocates, community-based organizations, and community leaders so they can work together to coordinate efforts, deploy available resources and oversee outreach efforts in hard-to-reach communities to make sure the count actually happens.
“Being counted in the Census may well be second only to voting when it comes to citizen action in the Democrat process,” said Martin Luther King III. “Unfortunately, people of color are the ones most often undercounted, which leads to negative consequences for their communities. I am proud to work with Governor Cuomo to ensure every New Yorker, even those that are hardest to reach, is counted in the 2020 Census.”
For the full version of this story, visit qns.com
