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LOGAN, Utah (AP) -- Every community in Cache County has banded together to persuade the federal government that more people live here.
The county believes it has at least 106,399 residents, based partly on building permits, not 98,662 as the government estimated for 2006.
If successful, the county could receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional tax money, based on formulas that are tied to population, Cache County planner Wendell Morse said. "It's a groundbreaking effort," said Morse, whose office sent the documentation via FedEx to Washington, D.C.
Logan is the largest city. The county believes it has 47,359 residents, 301 fewer than the government's 2006 estimate but still higher the 2005 estimate. North Logan would slip a bit, too.
The county's challenge says the Census Bureau missed people in almost all other communities during the latest estimate. Paradise should be 31 percent larger; Hyrum, 25 percent, officials claim. Smithfield would be the second-largest city at 8,774, instead of North Logan.
"When we started looking at the financial ramifications of this, it became a pretty exciting thing to be involved in," Morse said. "I think the Census Bureau will remember Cache County."
Kent Braddy, the county's Geographic Information Systems coordinator, said other growing counties should be considering their own challenge.
"If county and city governments realized that their funding is based so heavily on federal census numbers, they'll pay more attention to it," he said.
Indeed, Eagle Mountain in Utah County recently had its population revised to 17,391, up 42 percent.
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Information from: The Herald Journal
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
