Council Wants Plan Ready for ’90 Census

The Los Angeles City Council has asked the city attorney and several other city officials to prepare a plan to ensure that the city’s population is properly counted in the 1990 census.

Spurred by concerns that minority populations, including illegal aliens and the homeless, may be undercounted by the U.S. Census Bureau, the council voted 12 to 0 without discussion to have the plan prepared within 15 days.

The city has already filed a lawsuit, which has been joined by the state of California, New York City and New York state, Chicago and Dade County (Miami), Fla., seeking to change how the Census Bureau counts urban poor. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Joseph McLaughlin in New York allowed the lawsuit to proceed, saying that “the census has consistently undercounted the minority population.”