Task Force Formed to Aid Census : Population: With $97 a year in federal funds riding on each head counted, Glendale’s mayor is eager to have the ethnically diverse panel spread the word.

Mayor Jerold Milner was all smiles Tuesday night when he kicked off Glendale’s census campaign in the City Council chambers, and for good reason.

Sitting attentively in front of him was the most widely representative group of Glendale residents ever put together, Milner said. Latinos, Armenians, Asians, Pacific Islanders and Anglos, ranging in age from their late 20s to their early 60s, and representing practically every neighborhood in the city, were listening to his remarks.

Appointees to the Mayor’s Complete Count Committee, they will play a major role in helping Glendale get its fair share of federal funds and political representation by making sure that as many residents as possible are counted in the U.S. Census this spring.

It won’t be easy: Many of the city’s recent immigrants are either undocumented families from Mexico and Central America, or refugees from Soviet Armenia and the Middle East. Both groups are mostly non-English speaking and, presumably, lack sufficient trust in the U.S. federal government to willingly volunteer census information.

The role of the mayor’s volunteer task force will be to reach these groups and assure them that the census information will not be used against them, the mayor said. City officials hope to persuade these groups that the census will help the city obtain more funds, which in turn would lead to better services for the residents. Milner said every person counted in the census will bring in about $97 a year in federal funds to the city during the next ten years.

The task force will coordinate efforts to publicize the census in churches, schools and community organizations, and work with a task force of city employees in establishing census assistance centers for senior citizens, handicapped persons or foreigners who might have problems filling out the census forms or reading the fine print.

Aside from its long-term mission, the committee has already afforded Milner the opportunity to put a political blunder behind him.

Only three months ago, the mayor was at the center of a city controversy that erupted when he appointed only Anglo males to a task force to study the city’s future.

The announcement of those appointments drew a storm of protest from women and minorities, prompting Milner to quickly appoint two women and a black man to that group. During the past decade, Glendale has changed from a mostly white and somewhat isolated bedroom community to an ethnically diverse urban center with large Armenian, Latino and Asian populations.

There was no second-guessing of Milner’s appointments to his latest, 22-member task force.

“You will notice that you are not all Anglo males,” Milner told the task force members. “You come from different parts of the city, different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and a wide spread of ages.”

Some of the census task force members are: junior high school teacher Lori Kim; financial investor Jane Leggett; retired labor relations specialist Adelina Figueroa; publishing company manager Gene Mestel; Glendale Unified School District Trustee Jane Whittaker; and financial manager Glen Yamada, a leader of the Glendale chapter of the Red Cross.

Others include: Flora Rostamian, a cultural adviser to Glendale schools; Jake Shrivanian, who owns a solid-waste management company; Girl Scout leader and homemaker Christine Cross; the Mayor’s son, Mark Milner, a bank loan officer; free-lance journalist Peggy Taormina; attorney Richard Acuna; Homenetmen scout adviser Arick Gevorkian; psychologist Ben Marte; realtor Isabel Ibarra; law office manager Lito Te, and journalist Ellen Perry.

Rounding out the task force are: homeowners’ association President Arlene Joy; attorney Jeff Kopczynski; retired engineer John Wang; newspaper sales representative Martin Avila; Adrian Neal, a bank community relations manager, and financial consultant Albert Astrada.

The group’s next meeting will be Feb. 27 at the City Hall Personnel Training Room, where task force members will begin to map out strategies and assign responsibilities.

The census forms will be mailed out on March 23. The Pasadena census office will hire 5,244 people to go to homes that do not return forms or return them incomplete.

The Census Bureau has also established March 20 as Shelter Day. On that night, census workers will walk the streets to encourage homeless people to fill out the forms.

The Census Bureau is receiving work applications from persons over 18 years of age. The telephone number is (818) 351-4500.