As the U.S. Census moves into its next phase this month, census takers will be coming into local communities, visiting those residents who did not send in a form or complete one online.

These census takers will be in Fort Dodge and surrounding communities. Everyone who is contacted by a census taker should cooperate with them and provide the requested information. A lot depends on an accurate census count.

Influence and money are what’s at stake.

If you want your part of Iowa to have a voice in the United States House of Representatives, you must participate in the census because its data ultimately determines how many representatives each state has.

If you want your community to have influence in the Iowa legislature, you must answer the census questions because the head count is the basis for allocating seats in the state Senate and state House of Representatives.

If you want your community to get its fair share of the gasoline taxes you pay every time you fill up the tank, cooperate with the census takers. Gasoline tax revenue, which pays for road maintenance and snow removal, is divided between communities based on their populations.

And if you want your town to get its fair share of various federal funding sources, do the census because much of that money is awarded based on population.

The bottom line is this: if more people participate in the census, our community gets more representation and more funding.

So we urge everyone who is approached by a census taker to give them the information they seek.