Marshfield forming committee to analyze 2020 Census

Marshfield, Wis. (WSAW) - The city of Marshfield is forming a committee that will help analyze the data of the coming 2020 Census. The Census, which will be released later this month, will update numbers and totals up to ten years old.

The city is looking for two citizens to join three City Councilors to form the committee. Qualifications for applicants include being at least 18 years of age and a citizen of Marshfield. While there are no further requirements, having a background in maps and analyzing this type of data is important.

The main purpose of the committee is to address the city’s need to potentially re-draw district lines based on new population data. According to City Administrator Steve Barg, it’s important to the districts as evenly populated as possible.

“We want to make sure people have a representative right around them and as close as possible,” said Barg. “Right now, the representatives are able to represent the public pretty evenly and we want that to continue.”

While Barg doesn’t anticipate a large change in total population, he does believe there could be a substantial need to re-draw district lines due to the increase in multi-family housing developments and apartments constructed in the past decade.”

“Early in this decade, we made an effort to create more multi-family housing,” said Barg. “People were saying there were not good, quality apartments in the community. We worked with the private sector to create hundreds and hundreds of units in the community. If we didn’t address this, we’d have a situation where we have one person represent way too many people and another area where one person would represent very few.”

The process may be complicated, but the goal is to have all the data analyzed by the end of the calendar year. Since this is a once-in-a-decade occurrence, Barg asks for patience as the committee figures out solutions.

“We don’t expect anyone to be experts and that includes the members of the council. We just want to do our part.”

Applications to be on the committee are due by August 10th.

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